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Title: Christian Morals
Creator(s): Browne, Sir Thomas (1605-1682)
Print Basis: London: Rivingtons (1863)
Rights: Public Domain
CCEL Subjects: All
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CHRISTIAN MORALS.
BY
SIR THOMAS Browne, Kt. M.D.
LONDON:
RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE.
1863.
CHRISTIAN
MORALS:
BY
Sir THOMAS Browne,
Of NORWICH, M. D.
AND AUTHOR OF
RELIGIO MEDICI.
THE SECOND EDITION.
WITH
A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR,
BY
SAMUEL J0HNS0N;
AND
EXPLANATORY NOTES.
L0ND0N:
Printed by Richard Hett,
For J. PAYNE, at Pope's Head, in
Pater-Noster row.
M DCC LVI.
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THE LIFE OF SIR THOMAS Browne.
THOUGH the writer of the following Essays seems to have had the fortune
common among men of letters, of raising little curiosity after his
private life, and has, therefore, few memorials preserved of his
felicities or misfortunes; yet, because an edition of a posthumous work
appears imperfect and neglected, without some account of the author, it
was thought necessary to attempt the gratification of that curiosity
which naturally inquires, by what peculiarities of nature or fortune
eminent men have been distinguished, how uncommon attainments have been
gained, and what influence learning has had on its possessors, or
virtue on its teachers.
Sir Thomas Browne was born at London, in the parish of St. Michael in
Cheapside, on the 19th of 0ctober, MDCV. [1] His father was a merchant
of an antient family at Upton in Cheshire. Of the name or family of his
mother, I find no account.
Of his childhood or youth, there is little known; except that he lost
his father very early; that he was, according to the common fate of
orphans, [2] defrauded by one of his guardians; and that he was placed
for his education at the school of Winchester.
His mother, having taken three thousand pounds, [3] as the third part
of her husband's property, left her son, by consequence, six thousand;
a large fortune for a man destined to learning, at that time when
commerce had not yet filled the nation with nominal riches. But it
happened to him as to many others, to be made poorer by opulence; for
his mother soon married Sir Thomas Dutton, probably by the inducement
of her fortune; and he was left to the rapacity of his guardian,
deprived now of both his parents and therefore helpless and
unprotected.
He was removed in the beginning of the year MDCXXIII from Winchester to
Oxford; and entered a gentleman-commoner of Broadgate-Hall, [4] which
was soon afterwards endowed, and took the name of Pembroke-College,
from the Earl of Pembroke, then chancellor of the University. He was
admitted to the degree of bachelor of arts, January 31, MDCXXVI-VII;
being, as Wood remarks, the first man of eminence graduated from the
new college, to which the zeal or gratitude of those that love it most,
can with little better, than that it may long proceed as it began.
Having afterwards taken his degree of master of arts, he turned his
studies to physick, and practised it for some time in Oxfordshire; [5]
but soon afterwards, either induced by curiosity, or invited by
promises, he quitted his settlement, and accompanied his father-in-law,
[6] who had some employment in Ireland, in a visitation of the forts
and castles, which the state of Ireland then made necessary.
He that has once prevailed on himself to break his connexions of
acquaintance, and begin a wandering life, very easily continues it.
Ireland had, at that time, very little to offer to the observation of a
man of letters: he, therefore, passed into France and Italy; [7] made
some stay at Montpellier and Padua, which were then the celebrated
schools of physick; and returning home through Holland, procured
himself to be created Doctor of Physick at Leyden.
When he began his travels, or when he concluded them, there is no
certain account; nor do there remain any observations made by him in
his passage through those countries which he visited. To consider,
therefore, what pleasure or instruction might have been received from
the remarks of a man so curious and diligent, would be voluntarily to
indulge a painful reflection, and load the imagination with a wish,
which, while it is formed, is known to be vain. It is, however, to be
lamented, that those who are most capable of improving mankind, very
frequently neglect to communicate their knowledge; either because it is
more pleasing to gather ideas than to impart them, or because to minds
naturally great, few things appear of so much importance as to deserve
the notice of the publick.
About the year MDCXXXIV, he is supposed to have returned to London; [8]
and the next year to have written his celebrated treatise, called
Religio Medici, "The Religion of a Physician," which he declares
himself never to have intended for the press, having composed it only
for his own exercise and entertainment. [9] It, indeed, contains many
passages, which, relating merely to his own person, can be of no great
importance to the publick: but when it was written, it happened to him
as to others, he was too much pleased with his performance, not to
think that it might please others as much; he, therefore, communicated
it to his friends, and receiving, I suppose, that exuberant applause
with which every man repays the grant of perusing a manuscript, he was
not very diligent to obstruct his own praise by recalling his papers,
but suffered them to wander from hand to hand, till at last, without
his own consent, they were in MDCXLII given to a printer.
This has, perhaps, sometimes befallen others; and this, I am willing to
believe, did really happen to Dr. Browne: but there is, surely, some
reason to doubt the truth of the complaint so frequently made of
surreptitious editions. A song, or an epigram, may be easily printed
without the author's knowledge; because it may be learned when it is
repeated, or may be written out with very little trouble: but a long
treatise, however elegant, is not often copied by mere zeal or
curiosity, but may be worn out in passing from hand to hand, before it
is multiplied by a transcript. It is easy to convey an imperfect book,
by a distant hand, to the press, and plead the circulation of a false
copy as an excuse for publishing the true, or to correct what is found
faulty or offensive, and charge the errors on the transcriber's
depravations.
This is a stratagem, by which an author panting for fame, and yet
afraid of seeming, to challenge it, may at once gratify his vanity, and
preserve the appearance of modesty; may enter the lists, and secure a
retreat: and this, candour might fuller to pass undetected as an
innocent fraud, but that indeed no fraud is innocent; for the
confidence which makes the happiness of society, is in some degree
diminished by every man whose practice is at variance with his words.
The Religio Medici was no sooner published than it excited the
attention of the publick, by the novelty of paradoxes, the dignity of
sentiment, the quick succession of images, the multitude of abstruse
allusions, the subtlety of disquisition, and the strength of language.
What is much read, will be much criticised. The Earl of Dorset
recommended this book to the perusal of Sir Kenelm Digby, who returned
his judgment upon it, not in a letter, but a book; in which, though
mingled with some positions fabulous and uncertain, there are acute
remarks, just censures, and profound speculations; yet its principal
claim to admiration is, that it was written in twenty-four hours, [10]
of which part was spent in procuring Browne's book, and part in reading
it.
Of these animadversions, when they were not yet all printed, either
officiousness or malice informed Dr. Browne; who wrote to Sir Kenelm
with much softness and ceremony, declaring the unworthiness of his work
to engage such notice, the intended privacy of the composition, and the
corruptions of the impression; and received an answer equally gentle
and respectful, containing high commendations of the piece, pompous
professions of reverence, meek acknowledgments of inability, and
anxious apologies for the hastiness of his remarks.
The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in
the farce of life. Who would not have thought, that these two
luminaries of their age had ceased to endeavour to grow bright by the
obscuration of each other: yet the animadversions thus weak, thus
precipitate, upon a book thus injured in the transcription, quickly
passed the press; and Religio Medici was more accurately published,
with an admonition prefixed "to those who have, or shall peruse the
observations upon a former corrupt copy;" in which there is a severe
censure, not upon Digby, who was to be used with ceremony, but upon the
Observator who had usurped his name: nor was this invective written by
Dr. Browne, who was supposed to be satisfied with his opponent's
apology; but by some officious friend zealous for his honour, without
his consent.
Browne has, indeed, in his own preface, endeavoured to secure himself
from rigorous examination, by alleging, that "many things are delivered
rhetorically, many expressions merely tropical, and therefore many
things to be taken in a soft and flexible sense, and not to be called
unto the rigid test of reason." The first glance upon his book will
indeed discover examples of this liberty of thought and expression: "I
could be content (says he) to be nothing almost to eternity, if I might
enjoy my Saviour at the last." He has little acquaintance with the
acuteness of Browne, who suspects him of a serious opinion, that any
thing can be "almost eternal," or that any time beginning and ending is
not infinitely less than infinite duration.
In this book, he speaks much, and, in the opinion of Digby, too much of
himself; but with such generality and conciseness as affords very
little light to his biographer: he declares, that, besides the dialects
of different provinces, he understood six languages; that he was no
stranger to astronomy; and that he had seen several countries: but what
most awakens curiosity, is his solemn assertion, that "His life has
been a miracle of thirty years; which to relate, were not history but a
piece of poetry, and would sound like a fable."
There is, undoubtedly, a sense, in which all life is miraculous; as it
is an union of powers of which we can image no connexion, a succession
of motions of which the first cause must be supernatural: but life,
thus explained, whatever it may have of miracle, will have nothing of
fable; and, therefore, the author undoubtedly had regard to something,
by which he imagined himself distinguished from the rest of mankind.
Of these wonders, however, the view that can be now taken of his life
offers no appearance. The course of his education was like that of
others, such as put him little in the way of extraordinary casualties.
A scholastick and academical life is very uniform; and has, indeed,
more safety than pleasure. A traveller has greater opportunities of
adventure; but: Browne traversed no unknown seas, or Arabian deserts:
and, surely, a man may visit France and Italy, reside at Montpellier
and Padua, and at last take his degree at Leyden, without anything
miraculous. What it was, that would, if it was related, found so
poetical and fabulous, we are left to guess; I believe, without hope of
guessing rightly. The wonders probably were transacted in his own mind:
self-love, co-operating with an imagination vigorous and fertile as
that of Browne, will find or make objects of astonishment in every
man's life: and, perhaps, there is no human being, however hid in the
crowd from the observation of his fellow-mortals, who, if he has
leisure and disposition to recollect his own thoughts and actions, will
not conclude his life in some sort a miracle, and imagine himself
distinguished from all the rest of his species by many discriminations
of nature or of fortune.
The success of this performance was such, as might naturally encourage
the author to new undertakings. A gentleman of Cambridge, whose name
was Merryweather, [11] turned it not inelegantly into Latin; and from
his version it was again translated into Italian, German, Dutch, and
French; and at Strasburg the Latin translation was published with large
notes, by Lennus Nicolaus Moltfarius. Of the English annotations, which
in all the editions from. MDCXLIV accompany the book, the author is
unknown.
Of Merryweather, to whose zeal Browne was so much indebted for the
sudden extension of his renown, I know nothing, but that he published a
small treatise for the instruction of young persons in the attainment
of a Latin stile. He printed his translation in Holland with some
difficulty. [12] The first printer to whom he offered it, carried it to
Salmasius, "who laid it by (says he) in state for three months," and
then discouraged its publication: it was afterwards rejected by two
other printers, and at last was received by Hackius.
The peculiarities of this book raised the author, as is usual, many
admirers and many enemies; but we know not of more than one professed
answer, written under the title of "Medicus medicatus," [13] by
Alexander Ross, which was universally neglected by the world.
At the time when this book was published, Dr. Browne resided at
Norwich, where he had settled in MDCXXXVI, by the persuasion of Dr.
Lushington his tutor, [14] who was then rector of Barnham Westgate in
the neighbourhood. It is recorded by Wood, that his pratice was very
extensive, and that many patients resorted to him. In MDCXXXVII he was
incorporated Doctor of physick in Oxford. [15]
He married in MDCXLI Mrs. Mileham, of a good family in Norfolk; [16] "a
lady" (says Whitefoot) of such symmetrical proportion to her worthy
husband, both in the graces of her body and mind, that they seemed to
come together by a kind of natural magnetism."
This marriage could not but draw the raillery of contemporary wits upon
a man, [17] who had just been wishing in his new book, "that we might
procreate, like trees, without conjunction;" and had lately declared,
that "the whole world was made for man, but only the twelfth part of
man for woman;" [18] and that "man is the whole world, but woman only
the rib or crooked part of man."
Whether the lady had been yet informed of these contemptuous positions,
or whether she was pleased with the conquest of so formidable a rebel,
and considered it as a double triumph, to attract so much merit, and
overcome so powerful prejudices; or whether, like most others, she
married upon mingled motives, between convenience and inclination; she
had, however, no reason to repent: for she lived happily with him one
and forty years; and bore him ten children, of whom one son and three
daughters outlived their parents: she survived him two years, and
passed her widowhood in plenty, if not in opulence.
Browne having now entered the world as an author, and experienced the
delights of praise and molestations of censure, probably found his
dread of the publick eye diminished; and, therefore, was not long
before he trusted his name to the criticks a second time: for in
MDCXLVI he printed Enquiries into vulgar and common errors; [19] a
work, which as it arose not from fancy and invention, but from
observation and books, and contained not a single discourse of one
continued tenor, of which the latter part rose from the former, but an
enumeration of many unconnected particulars, must have been the
collection of years, and the effect of a design early formed and long
pursued, to which his remarks had been continually referred, and which
arose gradually to its present bulk by the daily aggregation of new
particles of knowledge. It is, indeed, to be wished, that he had longer
delayed the publication, and added what the remaining part of his life
might have furnished: the thirty-six years which he spent afterwards in
study and experience, would doubtless have made large additions to an
"Enquiry into vulgar errors." He published in MDCLXXIII the sixth
edition, with some improvements; but I think rather with explications
of what he had already written, than any new heads of disquisition. But
with the work, such as the author, whether hindered from continuing it
by eagerness of praise, or weariness of labour, thought fit to give, we
must be content; and remember, that in all sublunary things, there is
something to be wished, which we must wish in vain.
This book, like his former, was received with great applause, was
answered by Alexander Ross, and translated into Dutch and German, and
not many years ago into French. It might now be proper, had not the
favour with which it was at first received filled the kingdom with
copies, to reprint it with notes partly supplemental and partly
emendatory, to subjoin those discoveries which the industry of the last
age has made, and correct those mistakes which the author has committed
not by idleness or negligence, but for want of Boyle's and Newton's
philosophy.
He appears, indeed, to have been willing to pay labour for truth.
Having heard a flying rumour of sympathetick needles, by which,
suspended over a circular alphabet, distant friends or lovers might
correspond, he procured two such alphabets to be made, touched his
needles with the same magnet, and placed them upon proper spindles: the
result was, that when he moved one of his needles, the other, instead
of taking by sympathy the same direction, "stood like the pillars of
Hercules." That it continued motionless, will be easily believed; and
most men would have been content to believe it, without the labour of
so hopeless an experiment. Browne might himself have obtained the same
conviction by a method less operose, if he had thrust his needles
through corks, and then set them afloat in two basons of water.
Notwithstanding his zeal to detect old errors, he seems not very easy
to admit new positions; for he never mentions the motion of the earth
but with contempt and ridicule, though the opinion, which admits it,
was then growing popular, and was, surely, plausible, even before it
was confirmed by later observations.
The reputation of Browne encouraged some low writer to publish, under
his name, a book called "Nature's cabinet unlocked," [20] translated,
according to Wood, from the physicks of Magirus; of which Browne took
care to clear himself, by modestly advertising, that "if any man had
been benefited by it, he was not so ambitious as to challenge the
honour thereof, as having no hand in that work." [21]
In MDCLVIII the discovery of some antient urns in Norfolk gave him
occasion to write Hydriotaphia, Urn-burial, or a discourse of
sepulchral urns, in which he treats with his usual learning on the
funeral rites of the antient nations; exhibits their various treatment
of the dead; and examines the substances found in his Norfolcian urns.
There is, perhaps, none of his works which better exemplifies his
reading or memory. It is scarcely to be imagined, how many particulars
he has amassed together, in a treatise which seems to have been
occasionally written; and for which, therefore, no materials could have
been previously collected. It is, indeed, like other treatises of
antiquity, rather for curiosity than use; for it is of small importance
to know which nation buried their dead in the ground, which threw them
into the sea, or which gave them to birds and beasts; when the practice
of cremation began, or when it was disused; whether the bones of
different persons were mingled in the same urn; what oblations were
thrown into the pyre; or how the ashes of the body were distinguished
from those of other substances. Of the uselessness of all these
enquiries, Browne seems not to have been ignorant; and, therefore,
concludes them with an observation which can never be too frequently
recollected.
"All or most apprehensions rested in opinions of some future being,
which ignorantly or coldly believed, begat those perverted conceptions,
ceremonies, sayings, which christians pity or laugh at. Happy are they,
which live not in that disadvantage of time, when men could say little
for futurity, but from reason; whereby the noblest mind fell often upon
doubtful deaths, and melancholy dissolutions: with these hopes Socrates
warmed his doubtful spirits, against the cold potion; and Cato, before
he durst give the fatal stroke, spent part of the night in reading the
Immortality of Plato, thereby confirming his wavering hand unto the
animosity of that attempt.
"It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at man, to tell him
he is at the end of his nature; or that there is no further state to
come, unto which this seems progressional, and otherwise made in vain:
without this accomplishment, the natural expectation and desire of such
a state, were but a fallacy in nature; unsatisfied considerators would
quarrel the justice of their constitution, and rest content that Adam
had fallen lower, whereby, by knowing no other original, and deeper
ignorance of themselves, they might have enjoyed the happiness of
inferior creatures, who in tranquillity possess their constitutions, as
having not the apprehension to deplore their own natures; and being
framed below the circumference of these hopes or cognition of better
things, the wisdom of God hath necessitated their contentment. But the
superior ingredient and obscured part of ourselves, whereto all present
felicities afford no resting contentment, will be able to tell us we
are more than our present selves; and evacuate such hopes in the
fruition of their own accomplishments."
To his treatise on Urnburial was added The Garden of Cyrus, or the
Quincunxial lozenge, or network plantation of the antients,
artificially, naturally, mystically considered.
This discourse he begins with the Sacred garden, in which the first man
was placed; and deduces the practice of horticulture from the earliest
accounts of antiquity to the time of the Persian Cyrus, the first man
whom we actually know to have planted a Quincunx; which, however, our
author is inclined to believe of longer date, and not only discovers it
in the description of the hanging gardens of Babylon, but seems willing
to believe, and to persuade his reader, that it was practised by the
feeders on vegetables before the flood.
Some of the most pleasing performances have been produced by learning
and genius exercised upon subjects of little importance. It seems to
have been, in all ages, the pride of wit, to shew how it could exalt
the low, and amplify the little. To speak not inadequately of things
really and naturally great, is a talk not only difficult but
disagreeable; because the writer is degraded in his own eyes by
standing in comparison with his subject, to which he can hope to add
nothing from his imagination: but it is a perpetual triumph of fancy to
expand a scanty theme, to raise glittering ideas from obscure
properties, and to produce to the world an object of wonder to which
nature had contributed little. To this ambition, perhaps, we owe the
Frogs of Homer, the Gnat and the Bees of Virgil, the Butterfly of
Spenser, the Shadow of Wowerus, and the Quincunx of Browne.
In the prosecution of this sport of fancy, he considers every
production of art and nature, in which he could find any decussation or
approaches to the form of a Quincunx; and as a man once resolved upon
ideal discoveries, seldom searches long in vain, he finds his favourite
figure in almost every thing, whether natural or invented, antient or
modern, rude or artificial, sacred and civil; so that a reader, not
watchful against the power of his infusions, would imagine that
decussation was the great business of the world, and that nature and
art had no other purpose than to exemplify and imitate a Quincunx.
To shew the excellence of this figure, he enumerates all its
properties; and finds in it almost every thing of use or pleasure: and
to shew how readily he supplies what he cannot find, one instance may
be sufficient; "though therein (says he) we meet not with right angles,
yet every rhombus containing four angles equal unto two right, it
virtually contains two right in every one."
The fanciful sports of great minds are never without some advantage to
knowledge. Browne has interspersed many curious observations on the
form of plants, and the laws of vegetation; and appears to have been a
very accurate observer of the modes of germination, and to have watched
with great nicety the evolution of the parts of plants from their
seminal principles.
He is then naturally led to treat of the number five; and finds, that
by this number many things are circumscribed; that there are five kinds
of vegetable productions, five sections of a cone, five orders of
architecture, and five acts of a play. And observing that five was the
antient conjugal or wedding number, he proceeds to a speculation which
I shall give in his own words; "The antient numerists made out the
conjugal number by two and three, the first parity and imparity, the
active and passive digits, the material and formal principles in
generative societies."
These are all the tracts which he published: but many papers were found
in his closet, "Some of them, (says Whitefoot) designed for the press,
were often transcribed and corrected by his own hand, after the fashion
of great and curious writers."
Of these, two collections have been published; one by Dr. Tennison, the
other in MDCCXXII by a nameless editor. Whether the one or the other
selected those pieces which the author would have preferred, cannot now
be known: but they have both the merit of giving to mankind what was
too valuable to be suppressed; and what might, without their
interposition, have, perhaps, perished among other innumerable labours
of learned men, or have been burnt in a scarcity of fuel like the
papers of Pereskius.
The first of these posthumous treatises contains "Observations upon
several plants mentioned in Scripture." These remarks, though they do
not immediately either rectify the faith, or refine the morals of the
reader, yet are by no means to be censured as superfluous niceties or
useless speculations; for they often shew some propriety of
description, or elegance of allusion, utterly undiscoverable to readers
not skilled in oriental botany; and are often of more important use, as
they remove some difficulty from narratives, or some obscurity from
precepts.
The next is "Of garlands, or coronary and garland plants;" a subject
merely of learned curiosity, without any other end than the pleasure of
reflecting on antient customs, or on the industry with which studious
men have endeavoured to recover them.
The next is a letter "on the fishes eaten" by our Saviour with his
disciples, after "his resurrection from the dead;" which contains no
determinate resolution of the question, what they were, for indeed it
cannot be determined. All the information that diligence or learning
could supply, consists in an enumeration of the fishes produced in the
waters of Judea.
Then follow "Answers to certain queries about fishes, birds, and
insects;" and "A letter of hawks and falconry antient and modern:" in
the first of which he gives the proper interpretation of some antient
names of animals, commonly mistaken; and in the other has some curious
observations on the art of hawking, which he considers as a practice
unknown to the antients. I believe all our sports of the field are of
Gothick original; the antients neither hunted by the scent, nor seem
much to have practised horsemanship as an exercise; and though, in
their works, there is mention of "aucupium" and "piscatio," they seem
no more to have been considered as diversions, than agriculture or any
other manual labour.
In two more letters he speaks of "the cymbals of the Hebrews," but
without any satisfactory determination; and of "repalick or gradual
verses," that is, of verses beginning with a word of one syllable, and
proceeding by words of which each has a syllable more than the former;
as,
"O Deus, aeternae stationis conciliator." Ausonius.
and, after his manner, pursuing the hint, he mentions many other
restrained methods of versifying, to which industrious ignorance has
sometimes voluntarily subjected itself.
His next attempt is "On languages, and particularly the Saxon tongue."
He discourses with great learning, and generally with great justness,
of the derivation and changes of languages; but, like other men of
multifarious learning, he receives some notions without examination.
Thus he observes, according to the popular opinion, that the Spaniards
have retained so much Latin, as to be able to compose sentences that
shall be at once gramatically Latin and Castilian: this will appear
very unlikely to a man that considers the Spanish terminations; and
Howel, who was eminently skilful in the three provincial languages,
declares, that after many essays he never could effect it.
The principal design of this letter, is to shew the affinity between
the modern English and the antient Saxon; and he observes, very
rightly, that "though we have borrowed many substantives, adjectives,
and some verbs, from the French; yet the great body of numerals,
auxiliary verbs, articles, pronouns, adverbs, conjunctions, and
prepositions, which are the distinguishing and lasting parts of a
language, remain with us from the Saxon."
To prove this position more evidently, he has drawn up a short
discourse of six paragraphs, in Saxon and English; of which every word
is the same in both languages, excepting the terminations and
orthography. The words are, indeed, Saxon, but the phraseology is
English; and, I think, would not have been understood by Bede or
AElfric, notwithstanding the confidence of our author. He has, however,
sufficiently proved his position, that the English resembles its
parental language, more than any modern European dialect.
There remain five tracts of this collection yet unmentioned; one "Of
artificial hills, mounts, or burrows, in England;" in reply to an
interrogatory letter of E. D. whom the writers of Biographia Britannica
suppose to be, if rightly printed, W. D. or Sir William Dugdale, one of
Browne's correspondents. These are declared by Browne, in concurrence,
I think, with all other antiquarians, to be for the most part funeral
monuments. He proves, that both the Danes and Saxons buried their men
of eminence under piles of earth, "which admitting (says he) neither
ornament, epitaph, nor inscription, may, if earthquakes spare them,
outlast other monuments: obelisks have their term, and pyramids will
tumble; but these mountainous monuments may stand, and are like to have
the same period with the earth."
In the next, he answers two geographical questions; one concerning
Troas, mentioned in the Acts and Epistles of St. Paul, which he
determines to be the city built near the antient Ilium; and the other
concerning the dead sea, of which he gives the same account with other
writers.
Another letter treats "Of the answers" of the oracle of Apollo at
Delphos, to "Croesus king of Lydia." In this tract nothing deserves
notice, more than that Browne considers the oracles as evidently and
indubitably supernatural, and founds all his disquisition upon that
postulate. He wonders why the physiologists of old, having such means
of instruction, did not inquire into the secrets of nature: but
judiciously concludes, that such questions would probably have been
vain; "for, in matters cognoscible, and formed for our disquisition,
our industry must be our oracle, and reason our Apollo."
The pieces that remain are, "A prophecy concerning the future state of
several nations;" in which Browne plainly discovers his expedition to
be the same with that entertained lately with more confidence by Dr.
Berkley, "that America will be the seat of the fifth empire:" and
"Museum clausum, sive Bibliotheca abscondita;" in which the author
amuses himself with imagining the existence of books and curiosities,
either never in being, or irrecoverably lost.
These pieces I have recounted as they are ranged in Tennison's
collection, because the editor has given no account of the time at
which any of them were written. Some of them are of little value, more
than as they gratify the mind with the picture of a great scholar,
turning his learning into amusement; or shew, upon how great a variety
of enquiries the same mind has been successfully employed.
The other collection of his posthumous pieces, published in otavo,
London MDCCXXII, contains "Repertorium; or "some account of the tombs
and monuments in the cathedral of Norwich; where, as Tennison observes,
there is not matter proportionate to the skill of the Antiquary.
The other pieces are, "Answers to Sir William Dugdale's enquiries about
the fens; A letter concerning Ireland; Another relating to urns newly
discovered; Some short strictures on different subjects; and A letter
to a friend on the death of his intimate friend," published singly by
the author's son in MDCXC.
There is inserted, in the Biographia Britannica, "A letter containing
instructions for the study of physick;" which, with the Essays here
offered to the public, completes the works of Dr. Browne.
To the life of this learned man, there remains little to be added, but
that in MDCLXV he was chosen honorary fellow of the college of
physicians, as a man, "Virtute et literis ornatissimus,--eminently
embellished with literature and virtue:" and, in MDCLXXI, received, at
Norwich, the honour of knighthood from Charles II; a prince who, with
many frailties and vices, had yet skill to discover excellence, and
virtue to reward it, with such honorary distinctions at least as cost
him nothing, yet conferred by a king so judicious and so much beloved,
had the power of giving merit new lustre and greater popularity.
Thus he lived in high reputation; till in his seventy-sixth year he was
seized with a colick, which, after having tortured him about a week,
put an end to his life at Norwich, on his birthday, October 19,
MDCLXXXII. [22] Some of his last words were expressions of submission
to the will of God, and fearlessness of death.
He lies buried in the church of St. Peter, Mancroft, in Norwich, with
this inscription on a mural monument, placed on the south pillar of the
altar:
M. S.
Hic situs est Thomas Browne, M.D.
Et Miles.
A^o 1605. Londini natus
Generosa Familia apud Upton
In agro Cestriensi oriundus.
Schola primum Wintoniensi, postea
In Coll. Pembr.
Apud Oxonienses bonis literis
Haud leviter imbutus
In urbe hac Nordovicensi medicinam
Arte egregia, & faelici successu professus,
Scriptis quibus tituli, Religio Medici
Et Pseudodoxia Epidemica aliisque
Per Orbem notissimus.
Vir Prudentissimus, Integerrimus, Doctissimus;
Obiit Octob^r. 19. 1682.
Pie posuit maestissima Conjux
D^a. Doroth. Br.
Near the Foot of this Pillar
Lies Sir Thomas Browne, Kt. and Doctor in Physick,
Author of Religio Medici, and other Learned Books,
Who practic'd Physick in the City 46 Years,
And died Oct^r. 1682, in the 77 Year of his Age.
In Memory of whom
Dame Dorothy Browne, who had bin his Affectionate Wife
47 Years, caused this Monument to be Erected.
Besides his lady, who died in MDCLXXXV, he left a son and three
daughters. Of the daughters nothing very remarkable is known; but his
son, Edward Browne, requires a particular mention.
He was born about the year MDCXLII; and after having passed through the
classes of the school at Norwich, became bachelor of physick at
Cambridge; and afterwards removing to Merton-College in Oxford, was
admitted there to the same degree, and afterwards made a doctor. In
MDCLXVIII he visited part of Germany; and in the year following made a
wider excursion into Austria, Hungary, and Thessaly; where the Turkish
Sultan then kept his court at Larissa. He afterwards passed through
Italy. His skill in natural history made him particularly attentive to
mines and metallurgy. Upon his return he published an account of the
countries thro' which he had passed; which I have heard commended by a
learned traveller, who has visited many places after him, as written
with scrupulous and exalt veracity, such as is scarcely to be found in
any other book of the same kind. But whatever it may contribute to the
instruction of a naturalist, I cannot recommend it as likely to give
much pleasure to common readers: for whether it be, that the world is
very uniform, and therefore he who is resolved to adhere to truth, will
have few novelties to relate; or that Dr. Browne was, by the train of
his studies, led to enquire most after those things, by which the
greatest part of mankind is little affected; a great part of his book
seems to contain very unimportant accounts of his passage from one
place where he saw little, to another where he saw no more.
Upon his return, he practised physick in London; was made physician
first to Charles II, and afterwards in MDCLXXXII to St. Bartholomew's
hospital. About the same time he joined his name to those of many other
eminent men, in "A translation of Plutarch's lives." He was first
censor, then elect, and treasurer of the college of physicians; of
which in MDCCV he was chosen president, and held his office, till in
MDCCVIII he died in a degree of estimation suitable to a man so
variously accomplished, that King Charles had honoured him with this
panegyrick, that "He was as learned as any of the college, and as well
bred as any of the court."
Of every great and eminent character, part breaks forth into publick
view, and part lies hid in domestick privacy. Those qualities which
have been exerted in any known and lasting performances, may, at any
distance of time, be traced and estimated; but silent excellencies are
soon forgotten; and those minute peculiarities which discriminate every
man from all others, if they are not recorded by those whom personal
knowledge enabled to observe them, are irrecoverably lost. This
mutilation of character must have happened, among many others, to Sir
Thomas Browne, had it not been delineated by his friend Mr. Whitefoot,
who "esteemed it an especial favour of Providence, to have had a
particular acquaintance with him for two thirds of his life." Part of
his observations I shall, therefore, copy.
"For a character of his person, his complexion and hair was answerable
to his name; his stature was moderate, and habit of body neither fat
nor lean, but eusarkos
"In his habit of clothing, he had an aversion to all finery, and
affected plainness, both in the fashion and ornaments. He ever wore a
cloke, or boots, when few others did. He kept himself always very warm,
and thought it most safe so to do, though he never loaded himself with
such a multitude of garments, as Suetonius reports of Augustus, enough
to clothe a good family.
"The horizon of his understanding was much larger than the hemisphere
of the world: All that was visible in the heavens he comprehended so
well, that few that are under them knew so much: He could tell the
number of the visible stars in his horizon, and call them all by their
names that had any; and of the earth he had such a minute and exact
geographical knowledge, as if he had been by Divine Providence ordained
surveyor-general of the whole terrestrial orb, and its products,
minerals, plants, and animals. He was so curious a botanist, that
besides the specifical distinctions, he made nice and elaborate
observations, equally useful as entertaining.
"His memory, though not so eminent as that of Seneca or Scaliger, was
capacious and tenacious, insomuch as he remembred all that was
remarkable in any book that he had read; and not only knew all persons
again that he had ever seen at any distance of time, but remembred the
circumstances of their bodies, and their particular discourses and
speeches.
"In the latin poets he remembred every thing that was acute and
pungent; he had read most of the historians, antient and modern,
wherein his observations were singular, not taken notice of by common
readers; he was excellent company when he was at leisure, and expressed
more light than heat in the temper of his brain.
He had no despotical power over his affections and passions, (that was
a privilege of original perfection, forfeited by the neglect of the use
of it;) but as large a political power over them, as any Stoick, or man
of his time, whereof he gave so great experiment, that he hath very
rarely been known to have been overcome with any of them. The strongest
that were found in him, both of the irascible and concupiscible, were
under the controul of his reason. Of admiration, which is one of them,
being the only product, either of ignorance, or uncommon knowledge, he
had more, and less, than other men, upon the same account of his
knowing more than others; so that tho' he met with many rarities, he
admired them not so much as others do.
"He was never seen to be transported with mirth, or dejected with
sadness; always chearful, but rarely merry, at any sensible rate;
seldom heard to break a jest; and when he did, he would be apt to blush
at the levity of it: his gravity was natural without affectation.
"His modesty was visible in a natural habitual blush, which was
increased upon the least occasion, and oft discovered without any
observable cause.
"They that knew no more of him than by the briskness of his writings,
found themselves deceived in their expectation, when they came in his
company, noting the gravity and sobriety of his aspect and
conversation; so free from loquacity, or much talkativeness, that he
was something difficult to be engaged in any discourse; though when he
was so, it was always singular, and never trite or vulgar. Parsimonious
in nothing but his time, whereof he made as much improvement, with as
little loss as any man in it: when he had any to spare from his
drudging practice, he was scarce patient of any diversion from his
study; so impatient of sloth and idleness, that he would say, he could
not do nothing.
"Sir Thomas understood most of the European languages; viz. all that
are in Hutter's bible, which he made use of. The Latin and Greek he
understood critically; the Oriental languages, which never were
vernacular in this part of the world, he thought the use of them would
not answer the time and pains of learning them; yet had so great a
veneration for the matrix of them, viz. the Hebrew, consecrated to the
Oracles of God, that he was not content to be totally ignorant of it;
tho' very little of his science is to be found in any books of that
primitive language. And tho' much is said to be written in the
derivative idioms of that tongue, especially the Arabick, yet he was
satisfied with the translations, wherein he found nothing was
admirable.
"In his religion he continued in the same mind which he had declared in
his first book, written when he was but thirty years old, his Religio
Medici, wherein he fully assented to that of the Church of England,
preferring it before any in the world, as did the learned Grotius. He
attended the publick service very constantly, when he was not withheld
by his practice. Never missed the sacrament in his parish, if he were
in town. Read the best English sermons he could hear of, with liberal
applause; and delighted not in controversies. In his last sickness,
wherein he continued about a week's time, enduring great pain of the
cholick, besides a continual fever, with as much patience as hath been
seen in any man, without any pretence of Stoical apathy, animosity, or
vanity of not being concerned thereat, or suffering no impeachment of
happiness. Nihil agis dolor.
"His patience was founded upon the Christian philosophy, and a sound
faith of God's Providence, and a meek and humble submission thereunto,
which he expressed in few words: I visited him near his end, when he
had not strength to hear or speak much; the last words which I heard
from him, were, besides some expressions of dearness, that he did
freely submit to the will of God, being without fear: He had oft
triumphed over the king of terrors in others, and given many repulses
in the defence of patients; but when his own turn came, he submitted
with a meek, rational, and religious courage.
"He might have made good the old saying of Dat Galenus opes, had he
lived in a place that could have afforded it. But his indulgence and
liberality to his children, especially in their travels, two of his
sons in divers countries, and two of his daughters in France, spent him
moree a little. He was liberal in his house entertainments, and in his
charity; he left a comfortable, but no great estate, both to his lady
and children, gained by his own industry.
"Such was his sagacity and knowledge of all history, antient and
modern, and his observations thereupon so singular, that it hath been
said by them that knew him best, that if his profession, and place of
abode, would have suited his ability, he would have made an
extraordinary man for the privy-council, not much inferior to the
famous Padre, Paulo, the late oracle of the Venetian state.
"Tho' he were no prophet, nor son of a prophet, yet in that faculty
which comes nearest it, he excelled, i. e. the stochastick, wherein he
was seldom mistaken, as to future events, as well publick as private;
but not apt to discover any presages or superstition."
It is observable, that he who in his earlier years had read all the
books against religion, was in the latter part of his life averse from
controversies. To play with important truths, to disturb the repose of
established tenets, to subtilize objections, and elude proof, is too
often the sport of youthful vanity, of which maturer experience
commonly repents. There is a time, when every wife man is weary of
raising difficulties only to talk himself with the solution, and
desires to enjoy truth without the labour or hazard of contest. There
is, perhaps, no better method of encountering these troublesome
irruptions of scepticism, with which inquisitive minds are frequently
harassed, than that which Browne declares himself to have taken: "If
there arise any doubts in my way, I do forget them; or at least defer
them, till my better settled judgment and more manly reason be able to
resolve them: for I perceive, every man's reason is his best OEdipus,
and will, upon a reasonable truce, find a way "to loose those bonds,
wherewith the subtilties of error have enchained our more flexible and
tender judgments."
The foregoing character may be confirmed and enlarged by many passages
in the Religio Medici; in which it appears, from Whitefoot's testimony,
that the author, though no very sparing panegyrist of himself, has not
exceeded the truth, with respect to his attainments or visible
qualities.
There are, indeed, some interior and secret virtues, which a man may
sometimes have without the knowledge of others; and may sometimes
assume to himself, without sufficient reasons for his opinion. It is
charged upon Browne by Dr. Watts, as an instance of arrogant temerity,
that, after a long detail of his attainments, he declares himself to
have escaped the first and father-sin of pride." A perusal of the
Religio Medici will not much contribute to produce a belief of the
author's exemption from this FATHER-SIN: pride is a vice, which pride
itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in
himself.
As easily may we be mistaken in mating our own courage, as our own
humility; and, therefore, when Browne shews himself persuaded, that "he
could lose an arm without a tear, or with a few groans be quartered to
pieces," I am not sure that he felt in himself any uncommon powers of
endurance; or, indeed, any thing more than a sudden effervescence of
imagination, which, uncertain and involuntary as it is, he mistook for
settled resolution.
"That there were not many extant, that if in a noble way feared the
face of death less than himself," he might likewise believe at a very
easy expence, while death was yet at a distance; but the time will come
to every human being, when it must be known how well he can bear to
die; and it has appeared, that our author's fortitude did not desert
him in the great hour of trial.
It was observed by some of the remarkers on the Religio Medici, that
the author was yet alive, and might grow worse as well as better:" it
is, therefore, happy, that this suspicion can be obviated by a
testimony given to the continuance of his virtue, at a time when death
had set him free from danger of change, and his panegyrist from
temptation to flattery.
But it is not on the praises of others, but on his own writings, that
he is to depend for the esteem of posterity; of which he will not
easily be deprived, while learning shall have any reverence among men:
for there is no science, in which he does not discover some skill; and
scarce any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or elegant,
which he does not appear to have cultivated with success.
His exuberance of knowledge, and plenitude of ideas, sometimes obstruct
the tendency of his reasoning, and the clearness of his decisions: on
whatever subject he employed his mind, there started up immediately so
many images before him, that he lost one by grasping another. His
memory supplied him with so many illustrations, parallel or dependent
notions, that he was always starting into collateral considerations:
but the spirit and vigour of his pursuit always gives delight; and the
reader follows him, without reluctance, thro' his mazes, in themselves
flowery and pleasing, and ending at the point originally in view.
To have great excellencies, and great faults, "magnae virtutes nec
minora vitia, is the poesy," says our author, "of the best natures."
This poesy may be properly applied to the style of Browne: It is
vigorous, but rugged; it is learned, but pedantick; it is deep, but
obscure; it strikes, but does not please; it commands, but does not
allure: his tropes are harsh, and his combinations uncouth. He fell
into an age, in which our language began to lose the stability which it
had obtained in the time of Elizabeth; and was considered by every
writer as a subject on which he might try his plastick skill, by
moulding it according to his own fancy. Milton, in consequence of this
encroaching licence, began to introduce the Latin idiom: and Browne,
though he gave less disturbance to our structures and phraseology, yet
poured in a multitude of exotick words; many, indeed, useful and
significant, which, if rejected, must be supplied by circumlocution,
such as Commensality for the state of many living at the same table;
but many superfluous, as a Paralogical for an unreasonable doubt; and
some so obscure, that they conceal his meaning rather than explain it,
as Arthritical analogies for parts that serve some animals in the place
of joints.
His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of
heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms
originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the
service of another. He must, however, be confessed to have augmented
our philosophical diction; and in defence of his uncommon words and
expressions, we must consider, that he had uncommon sentiments, and was
not content to express in many words that idea for which any language
could supply a single term.
But his innovations are sometimes pleasing, and his temerities happy:
he has many "verba ardentia," forcible expressions, which he would
never have found, but by venturing to the utmost verge of propriety;
and flights which would never have been reached, but by one who had
very little fear of the shame of falling.
There remains yet an objection against the writings of Browne, more
formidable than the animadversions of criticism. There are passages,
from which some have taken occasion to rank him among Deists, and
others among Atheists. It would be difficult to guess how any such
conclusion should be formed, had not experience shewn that there are
two sorts of men willing to enlarge the catalogue of infidels.
It has been long observed, that an Atheist has no just reason for
endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they
can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their
opinions. In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own doctrines,
they are desirous to gain the attestation of another understanding; and
industriously labour to win a proselyte, and eagerly catch at the
slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a celebrated name. [23]
The others become friends to infidelity only by unskilful hostility:
men of rigid orthodoxy, cautious conversation, and religious asperity.
Among these, it is too frequently the practice, to make in their heat
concessions to Atheism, or Deism, which their most confident advocates
had never dared to claim or to hope. A sally of levity, an idle
paradox, an indecent jest, an unseasonable objection, are sufficient,
in the opinion of these men, to efface a name from the lists of
Christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life. Such men are so
watchful to censure, that they have seldom much care to look for
favourable interpretations of ambiguities, to set the general tenor of
life against single failures, or to know how soon any slip of
inadvertency has been expiated by sorrow and retractation; but let fly
their fulminations, without mercy or prudence, against slight offences
or casual temerities, against crimes never committed, or immediately
repented.
The Infidel knows well, what he is doing. He is endeavouring to supply,
by authority, the deficiency of his arguments; and to make his cause
less invidious, by shewing numbers on his side: he will, therefore, not
change his conduct, till he reforms his principles. But the zealot
should recollect, that he is labouring, by this frequency of
excommunication, against his own cause; and voluntarily adding strength
to the enemies of truth. It must always be the condition of a great
part of mankind, to reject and embrace tenets upon the authority of
those whom they think wiser than themselves; and, therefore, the
addition of every name to infidelity, in some degree invalidates that
argument upon which the religion of multitudes is necessarily founded.
Men may differ from each other in many religious opinions, and yet all
may retain the essentials of Christianity; men may sometimes eagerly
dispute, and yet not differ much from one another: the rigorous
persecutors of error, should, therefore, enlighten their zeal with
knowledge, and temper their orthodoxy with Charity; that Charity,
without which orthodoxy is vain; Charity that "thinketh no evil," but
"hopeth all things," and "endureth" all things."
Whether Browne has been numbered among the contemners of religion, by
the fury of its friends, or the artifice of its enemies, it is no
difficult talk to replace him among the most zealous Professors of
Christianity. He may, perhaps, in the ardour of his imagination, have
hazarded an expression, which a mind intent upon faults may interpret
into heresy, if considered apart from the rest of his discourse; but a
phrase is not to be opposed to volumes: there is scarcely a writer to
be found, whose profession was not divinity, that has so frequently
testified his belief of the Sacred Writings, has appealed to them with
such unlimited submission, or mentioned them with such unvaried
reverence.
It is, indeed, somewhat wonderful, that He should be placed without the
pale of Christianity, who declares, that "he assumes the honourable
stile of A Christian," not because it is "the religion of his country,"
but because "having in his riper years and confirmed judgment seen and
examined all, he finds himself obliged, by the principles of Grace, and
the law of his own reason, to embrace no other name but this:" Who, to
specify his persuasion yet more, tells us, that he is of the Reformed
Religion; of the same belief our Saviour taught, the Apostles
disseminated, the Fathers authorized, and the Martyrs confirmed:" Who,
tho' "paradoxical in philosophy, loves in divinity to keep the beaten
road;" and pleases himself, that "he has no taint of heresy, schism, or
error:" To whom "where the Scripture is silent, the Church is a text;
where that speaks, 'tis but a comment; and who uses not the dictates of
his own reason, but where there is a joint silence of both:" Who
blesses himself, that he lived not in the days of miracles, when faith
had been thrust upon him; but enjoys that greater blessing, pronounced
to all that believe and saw not." He cannot surely be charged with a
defect of faith, who "believes that our Saviour was dead, and buried,
and rose again, and desires to see him in his glory:" and who affirms,
that "this is not much to believe;" that as we have reason, we owe this
faith unto history;" and that "they only had the advantage of a bold
and noble faith, who lived before his coming; and, upon obscure
prophecies and mystical types, could raise a belief." Nor can contempt
of the positive and ritual parts of religion be imputed to him, who
doubts, whether a good man would refuse a poisoned eucharist; and "who
would violate his own arm, rather than a church."
The opinions of every man must be learned from himself: concerning his
practice, it is safest to trust the evidence of others. Where these
testimonies concur, no higher degree of historical certainty can be
obtained; and they apparently concur to prove, that Browne was A
zealous adherent to the faith of CHRIST, that he lived in obedience to
his laws, and died in confidence of his mercy.
__________________________________________________________________
[1] Life of Sir Thomas Browne, prefixed to the antiquities of Norwich.
[2] Whitefoot's character of Sir Thomas Browne in a marginal note.
[3] Life of Sir Thomas Browne.
[4] Wood's Athenae Oxoniensis.
[5] Wood.
[6] Life of Sir Thomas Browne.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Biographia Britannica.
[9] Letter to Sir Kenelm Digby, prefixed to the Religio Medici, folio
edit.
[10] Digby's letter to Browne, prefixed to the Religio Medici, folio
edit.
[11] Life of Sir Thomas Browne.
[12] Merryweather's letter, inserted in the life of Sir Thomas Browne.
[13] Life of Sir Thomas Browne.
[14] Wood's Athenae Oxonienses.
[15] Wood.
[16] Whitefoot.
[17] Howell's letters.
[18] Religio Medici.
[19] Life of Sir Thomas Browne.
[20] Wood, and Life of Thomas Browne.
[21] At the end of Hydriotaphia.
[22] Browne's Remains. Whitefoot.
[23]
Therefore no hereticks desire to spread
Their wild opinions like these epicures.
For so their stagg'ring thoughts are computed,
And other men's assent their doubt assures.
Davies.
__________________________________________________________________
CHRISTIAN MORALS.
__________________________________________________________________
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
DAVID EARL OF BUCHAN,
VISCOUNT AUCHTERHOUSE, LORD CARDROSS
AND GLENDOVACHIE,
ONE OP THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF POLICE, AND LORD
LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTIES OP STIRLING
AND CLACKMANNAN IN NORTH
BRITAIN.
My Lord,
THE Honour you have done our Family obligeth us to make all just
Acknowledgments of it: and there is no Form of Acknowledgment in our
Power, more worthy of your Lordship's Acceptance, than this Dedication
of the last Work of our Honoured and Learned Father. Encouraged
hereunto by the knowledge we have of Your Lordship's Judicious Relish
of universal Learning, and sublime Virtue, we beg the Favour of Your
Acceptance of it, which will very much oblige our Family in general,
and Her in particular, who is,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's
most humble Servant,
Elizabeth Littleton.
__________________________________________________________________
THE PREFACE.
IF any one, after he has read Religio Medici, and the ensuing
Discourse, can make doubt, whether the same person was the author of
them both, he may be assured by the testimony of Mrs. Littleton, Sir
Thomas Brown's daughter, who lived with her father when it was composed
by him; and who, at the time, read it written by his own hand: and also
by the testimony of others (of whom I am one), who read the manuscript
of the author, immediately after his death, and who have since read the
same; from which it hath been faithfully and exactly transcribed for
the press. The reason why it was not printed sooner is, because it was
unhappily lost, by being mislay'd among other manuscripts for which
search was lately made in the presence of the Lord Archbishop of
Canterbury, of which his Grace, by letter, informed Mrs. Littleton,
when he sent the manuscript to her. There is nothing printed in the
discourse, or in the short notes, but what is found in the original
manuscript of the author, except only where an oversight had made the
addition or transposition of some words necessary.
John Jeffrey,
Arch-Deacon of Norwich
__________________________________________________________________
CHRISTIAN MORALS.
PART I.
TREAD softly and circumspectly in this funambulatory [24] track and
narrow path of goodness: pursue virtue virtuously: leven not good
actions nor render virtues disputable. Stain not fair acts with foul
intentions: maim not uprightness by halting concomitances, nor
circumstantially deprave substantial goodness.
Consider whereabout thou art in Cebes's [25] table, or that old
philosophical pinax [26] of the life of man: whether thou art yet in
the road of uncertainties; whether thou hast yet entred the narrow
gate, got up the hill and asperous way, which leadeth unto the house of
sanity; or taken that purifying potion from the hand of sincere
erudition, which may send thee clear and pure away unto a virtuous and
happy life.
In this virtuous voyage of thy life hull not about like the ark,
without the use of rudder, mast, or sail, and bound for no port. Let
not disappointment cause despondency, nor difficulty despair. Think not
that you are failing from Lima to Manilla, [27] when you may fasten up
the rudder, and sleep before the wind; but expect rough seas, flaws,
[28] and contrary blasts: and 'tis well, if by many cross tacks and
veerings you arrive at the port; for we sleep in lions' skins [29] in
our progress unto virtue, and we slide not but climb unto it.
Sit not down in the popular forms and common level of virtues. Offer
not only peace-offerings but holocausts unto God: where all is due make
no reserve, and cut not a cummin-seed with the Almighty: to serve Him
singly to serve ourselves, were too partial a piece of piety; not like
to place us in the illustrious mansions of glory.
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REST not in an ovation [30] but a triumph over thy passions. Let anger
walk hanging down the head; let malice go manicled, and envy fetter'd
after thee. Behold within thee the long train of thy trophies, not
without thee. Make the quarrelling Lapithytes sleep, and Centaurs
within lie quiet. [31] Chain up the unruly legion of thy breast. Lead
thine own captivity captive, and he Caesar within thyself.
__________________________________________________________________
HE that is chast and continent not to impair his strength, or honest
for fear of contagion, will hardly be heroically virtuous. Adjourn not
this virtue until that temper, when Cato [32] could lend out his wife,
and impotent satyrs write satyrs upon lust: but be chast in thy flaming
days, when Alexander dar'd not trust his eyes upon the fair sisters of
Darius, and when so many think there is no other way but Origen's.
__________________________________________________________________
SOW thy art in honesty, and lose not thy virtue by the bad managery of
it. Be temperate and sober; not to preserve your body in an ability for
wanton ends; not to avoid the infamy of common transgressors that way,
and thereby to hope to expiate or palliate obscure and closer vices;
not to spare your purse, nor simply to enjoy health: but in one word,
that thereby you may truly serve God, which every sickness will tell
you you cannot well do without health. The sick man's sacrifice is but
a lame oblation. Pious treasures laid up in healthful days, plead for
sick non-performances without which we must needs look back with
anxiety upon the lost opportunities of health; and may have cause
rather to envy than pity the ends of penitent publick sufferers, who go
with healthful prayers unto the last scene of their lives, and in the
integrity of their faculties [33] return their spirit unto God that
gave it.
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BE charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and lose not the glory
of the mite. If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with them; and
think it not enough to be liberal, but munificent. Though a cup of cold
water from some hand may not be without its reward, yet stick not thou
for wine and oil for the wounds of the distressed; and treat the poor,
as our Saviour did the multitude, to the reliques of some baskets.
Diffuse thy beneficence early, and while thy treasures call thee
master: there may be an Atropos [34] of thy fortunes before that of thy
life, and thy wealth cut off before that hour, when all men shall be
poor; for the justice of death looks equally upon the dead, and Charon
expects no more from Alexander than from Irus.
__________________________________________________________________
GIVE not only unto seven, but also unto eight, that is, unto more than
many. [35] Though to give unto every one that asketh may seem severe
advice, [36] yet give thou also before asking; that is, where want is
silently clamorous, and men's necessities not their tongues do loudly
call for thy mercies. For though sometimes necessitousness be dumb, or
misery speak not out, yet true charity is sagacious, and will find out
hints for beneficence. Acquaint thyself with the physiognomy of want,
and let the dead colours and first lines of necessity suffice to tell
thee there is an object for thy bounty. Spare not where thou canst not
easily be prodigal, and fear not to be undone by mercy; for since he
who hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Almighty rewarder, who
observes no ides [37] but every day for his payments, charity becomes
pious usury, Christian liberality the most thriving industry; and what
we adventure in a cockboat may return in a carrack unto us. He who thus
casts his bread upon the water, shall surely find it again; for though
it falleth to the bottom, it sinks but like the ax of the prophet, to
rise again unto him.
__________________________________________________________________
IF avarice be thy vice, yet make it not thy punishment. Miserable men
commiserate not themselves, bowelless unto others, and merciless unto
their own bowels. Let the fruition of things bless the possession of
them, and think it more satisfaction to live richly than die rich. For
since thy good works, not thy goods, will follow thee; since wealth is
an appertinance of life, and no dead man is rich; to famish in plenty,
and live poorly, to die rich, were a multiplying improvement in
madness, and use upon use in folly.
__________________________________________________________________
TRUST not to the omnipotency of gold, and say not unto it thou art my
confidence. Kiss not thy hand to that terrestrial sun, nor bore thy ear
unto its servitude. A slave unto mammon makes no servant unto God.
Covetousness cracks the sinews of faith; numbs the apprehension of any
thing above sense; and only affected with the certainty of things
present, makes a peradventure of things to come; lives but unto one
world, nor hopes but fears another; makes their own death sweet unto
others, bitter unto themselves; brings formal sadness, scenical
mourning, and no wet eyes at the grave.
__________________________________________________________________
PERSONS lightly dipt, not grain'd [38] in generous honesty, are but
pale in goodness, and faint hued in integrity. But be thou what thou
virtuously art, and let not the ocean wash away thy tincture. Stand
magnetically [39] upon that axis, when prudent simplicity hath fixt
there; and let no attraction invert the poles of thy honesty. That vice
may be uneasy and even monstrous unto thee, let iterated good ads and
long confirmed habits make virtue almost natural, or a second nature in
thee. Since virtuous superstructions have commonly generous
foundations, dive into thy inclinations, and early discover what nature
bids thee to be, or tells thee thou may'st be. They who thus timely
descend into themselves, and cultivate the good seeds which nature hath
set in them, prove not shrubs but cedars in their generation. And to be
in the form of the best of the bad, or the worst of the good, [40] will
be no satisfaction unto them.
__________________________________________________________________
MAKE not the consequence of virtue the ends thereof. Be not beneficent
for a name or cymbal of applause; nor exalt and just in commerce for
the advantages of trust and credit, which attend the reputation of true
and punctual dealing: for these rewards, though unsought for, plain
virtue will bring with her. To have other by-ends in good actions
sowers laudable performances, which must have deeper roots, motives,
and instigations, to give them the stamp of virtues.
__________________________________________________________________
LET not the law of thy country be the non ultra of thy honesty; nor
think that always good enough which the law will make good. Narrow not
the law of charity, equity, mercy. Join gospel righteousness with legal
right. Be not a mere Gamaliel in the faith, but let the sermon in the
mount be thy Targum [41] unto the law of Sinai.
__________________________________________________________________
LIVE by old ethicks and the classical rules of honesty. Put no new
names or notions upon authentick virtues and vices. Think not, that
morality is ambulatory; that vices in one age are not vices in another;
or that virtues, which are under the everlasting seal of right reason,
may be stamped by opinion. And therefore though vicious times invert
the opinions of things, and set up new ethicks against virtue, yet hold
thou unto old morality; and rather than follow a multitude to do evil,
stand like Pompey's pillar conspicuous by thyself, and single in
integrity. And since the worst of times afford imitable examples of
virtue; since no deluge of vice is like to be so general but more than
eight will escape; [42] eye well those heroes who have held their heads
above water, who have touched pitch and not been defiled, and in the
common contagion have remained uncorrupted.
__________________________________________________________________
LET age not envy draw wrinkles on thy cheeks; be content to be envy'd,
but envy not. Emulation may be plausible and indignation allowable, but
admit no treaty with that passion which no circumstance can make good.
A displacency at the good of others because they enjoy it, though not
unworthy of it, is an absurd depravity, sticking fast unto corrupted
nature, and often too hard for humility and charity, the great
suppressors of envy. This surely is a lion not to be strangled but by
Hercules himself, or the highest stress of our minds, and an atom of
that power which subdueth all things unto itself.
__________________________________________________________________
WE not thy humility unto humiliation from adversity, but look humbly
down in that state when others look upwards upon thee. Think not thy
own shadow longer than that of others, nor delight to take the altitude
of thyself. Be patient in the age of pride, when men live by short
intervals of reason under the dominion of humor and passion, when it's
in the power of every one to transform thee out of thyself, and run
thee into the short madness. If you cannot imitate Job, yet come not
short of Socrates, [43] and those patient Pagans who tired the tongues
of their enemies, while they perceived they spit their malice at brazen
walls and statues.
__________________________________________________________________
LET not the sun in capricorn [44] go down upon thy wrath, but write thy
wrongs in ashes. Draw the curtain of night upon injuries, shut them up
in the tower of oblivion, [45] and let them be as though they had not
been. To forgive our enemies, yet hope that God will punish them, is
not to forgive enough. To forgive them ourselves, and not to pray God
to forgive them, is a partial piece of charity. Forgive thine enemies
totally, and without any reserve that, however, God will revenge thee.
__________________________________________________________________
WHILE thou so hotly disclaimest the devil, be not guilty of diabolism.
Fall not into one name with that unclean spirit, nor act his nature
whom thou so much abhorrest; that is, to accuse, calumniate, backbite,
whisper, detract, or sinistrously interpret others. Degenerous
depravities, and narrow-minded vices! not only below St. Paul's noble
Christian but Aristotle's true gentleman. [46] Trust not with some that
the epistle of St. James is apocryphal, and so read with less fear that
stabbing truth, that in company with this vice "thy religion is in
vain." Moses broke the tables, without breaking of the law; but where
charity is broke, the law itself is shattered, which cannot be whole
without Love, which is "the fulfilling of it." Look humbly upon thy
virtues; and though thou art rich in some, yet think thyself poor and
naked without that crowning grace, which "thinketh no evil, which
envieth not, which beareth, hopeth, believeth, endureth all things."
With these sure graces, while busy tongues are crying out for a drop of
cold water, mutes may be in happiness, and sing the Trisagion [47] in
heaven.
__________________________________________________________________
HOWEVER thy understanding may waver in the theories of true and false,
yet fasten the rudder of thy will, steer straight unto good and fall
not foul on evil. Imagination is apt to rove, and conjecture to keep no
bounds. Some have run out so far, as to fancy the stars might be but
the light of the crystalline heaven shot through perforations on the
bodies of the orbs. Others more ingeniously doubt whether there hath
not been a vast tract of land in the Atlantick ocean, which earthquakes
and violent causes have long ago devoured. Speculative misapprehensions
may be innocuous, but immorality pernicious; theorical mistakes and
physical deviations may condemn our judgments, not lead us into
judgment. But perversity of will, immoral and sinful enormities walk
with Adraste and Nemesis [48] at their backs, pursue us unto judgment,
and leave us viciously miserable.
__________________________________________________________________
BID early defiance unto those vices which are of thine inward family,
and having a root in thy temper plead a right and propriety in thee.
Raise timely batteries against those strong holds built upon the rock
of nature, and make this a great part of the militia of thy life.
Delude not thyself into iniquities from participation or community,
which abate the sense but not the obliquity of them. To conceive sins
less, or less of sins, because others also transgress, were morally to
commit that natural fallacy of man, to take comfort from society, and
think adversities less because others also suffer them. The politick
nature of vice must be opposed by policy; and, therefore, wiser
homilies project and plot against it: wherein, notwithstanding, we are
not to rest in generals, or the trite stratagems of art. That may
succeed with one, which may prove successless with another: there is no
community or commonweal of virtue: every man must study his own
oeconomy, and adapt such rules unto the figure of himself.
__________________________________________________________________
BE substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto
others; and let the world be deceived in thee, as they are in the
lights of heaven. Hang early plummets upon the heels of pride, and let
ambition have but an epicycle [49] and narrow circuit in thee. Measure
not thyself by thy morning shadow, but by the extent of thy grave; and
reckon thyself above the earth, by the line thou must be contented with
under it. Spread not into boundless expansions either of designs or
desires. Think not that mankind liveth but for a few; and that the rest
are born but to serve those ambitions, which make but flies of men and
wildernesses of whole nations. Swell not into vehement actions which
imbroil and confound the earth; but be one of those violent ones which
force the kingdom of heaven. [50] If thou must needs rule, be Zeno's
king, [51] and enjoy that empire which every man gives himself. He who
is thus his own monarch contentedly sways the scepter of himself, not
envying the glory of crowned heads and elohims of the earth. Could the
world unite in the practise of that despised train of virtues, which
the divine ethicks of our Saviour hath so inculcated upon us, the
furious face of things must disappear; Eden would be yet to be found,
and the angels might look down, not with pity, but joy upon us.
__________________________________________________________________
THOUGH the quickness of thine ear were able to reach the noise of the
moon, which some think it maketh in its rapid revolution; though the
number of thy ears should equal Argus his eyes; yet stop them all with
the wise man's wax, [52] and be deaf unto the suggestions of
tale-bearers, calumniators, pickthank or malevolent delators, who,
while quiet men sleep, sowing the tares of discord and division,
distract the tranquillity of charity and all friendly society. These
are the tongues that set the world on fire, cankers of reputation, and,
like that of Jonas his gourd, wither a good name in a night. Evil
spirits may sit still, while these spirits walk about and perform the
business of hell. To speak more strictly, our corrupted hearts are the
factories of the devil, which may be at work without his presence; for
when that circumventing spirit hath drawn malice, envy, and all
unrighteousness unto well rooted habits in his disciples, iniquity then
goes on upon its own legs; and if the gate of hell were shut up for a
time, vice would still be fertile and produce the fruits of hell. Thus
when God forsakes us, Satan also leaves us: for such offenders he looks
upon as sure and sealed up, and his temptations then needless unto
them.
__________________________________________________________________
ANNIHILATE not the mercies of God by the oblivion of ingratitude: for
oblivion is a kind of annihilation; and for things to be as though they
had not been, is like unto never being. Make not thy head a grave, but
a repository of God's mercies. Though thou hadst the memory of Seneca,
or Simonides, and conscience the punctual memorist within us, yet trust
not to thy remembrance in things which need phylacteries. [53] Register
not only strange, but merciful occurrences. Let Ephemerides not
Olympiads [54] give thee account of his mercies: let thy diaries stand
thick with dutiful mementos and asterisks of acknowledgment. And to be
compleat and forget nothing, date not his mercy from thy nativity; look
beyond the world, and before the aera of Adam.
__________________________________________________________________
PAINT not the sepulcher of thy self, and strive not to beautify thy
corruption. Be not an advocate for thy vices, nor call for many
hour-glasses [55] to justify thy imperfections. Think not that always
good which thou thinkest thou canst always make good, nor that
concealed which the sun doth not behold: that which the sun doth not
now see, will be visible when the sun is out, and the stars are fallen
from heaven. Mean while there is no darkness unto conscience; which can
see without light, and in the deepest obscurity give a clear draught of
things, which the cloud of dissimulation hath conceal'd from all eyes.
There is a natural standing court within us, examining, acquitting, and
condemning at the tribunal of ourselves; wherein iniquities have their
natural thetas [56] and no nocent is absolved by the verdict of
himself. [57] And therefore although our transgressions shall be tried
at the last bar, the process need not be long: for the Judge of all
knoweth all, and every man will nakedly know himself; and when so few
are like to plead not guilty, the assize must soon have an end.
__________________________________________________________________
COMPLY with some humours, bear with others, but serve none. Civil
complacency consists with decent honesty: Flattery is a juggler, and no
kin unto sincerity. But while thou maintainest the plain path, and
scornest to flatter others, fall not into self-adulation, and become
not thine own parasite. Be deaf unto thyself, and be not betrayed at
home. Self-credulity, pride, and levity lead unto self-idolatry. There
is no Damocles [58] like unto self-opinion, nor any Siren to our own
fawning conceptions. To magnify our minor things, or hug ourselves in
our apparitions; [59] to afford a credulous ear unto the clawing [60]
suggestions of fancy; to pass our days in painted mistakes of
ourselves; and tho' we behold our own blood, [61] to think ourselves
the sons of Jupiter; [62] are blandishments of self-love, worse than
outward delusion. By this imposture wise men sometimes are mistaken in
their elevation, and look above themselves. And fools, which are
antipodes [63] unto the wise, conceive themselves to be but their
Perioeci, [64] and in the same parallel with them.
__________________________________________________________________
BE not a Hercules furens abroad, and a poltron within thyself. To chase
our enemies out of the field, and be led captive by our vices; to beat
down our foes, and fall down to our concupiscences; are solecisms in
moral schools, and no laurel attends them. To well manage our
affections, and wild horses of Plato, are the highest Circenses: [65]
and the noblest digladiation [66] is in the theatre of ourselves; for
therein our inward antagonists, not only like common gladiators, with
ordinary weapons and down-right blows make at us, but also, like
retiary and laqueary [67] combatants, with nets, frauds, and
entanglements, fall upon us. Weapons for such combats are not to be
forged at Lipara: [68] Vulcan's art doth nothing in this internal
militia; wherein not the armour of Achilles, but the armature of St.
Paul, gives the glorious day, and triumphs not leading up into
capitols, but up into the highest heavens. And, therefore, while so
many think it the only valour to command and master others, study thou
the dominion of thyself, and quiet thine own commotions. Let right
reason be thy Lycurgus, [69] and lift up thy hand unto the law of it:
move by the intelligences of the superiour faculties, not by the rapt
of passion, nor merely by that of temper and constitution. They who are
merely carried on by the wheel of such inclinations, without the hand
and guidance of sovereign reason, are but the automatous [70] part of
mankind, rather lived than living, or at least underliving themselves.
__________________________________________________________________
LET not fortune, which hath no name in Scripture, have any in thy
divinity. Let Providence, not chance, have the honour of thy
acknowledgments, and be thy OEdipus in contingences. Mark well the
paths and winding ways thereof; but be not too wise in the
construction, or sudden in the application. The hand of Providence
writes often by abbreviatures, hieroglyphicks or short characters,
which, like the Laconism [71] on the wall, are not to be made out but
by a hint or key from that Spirit which indited them. Leave future
occurrences to their uncertainties, think that which is present thy
own; and since it is easier to foretel an eclipse, than a soul day, at
some distance, look for little regular below. Attend with patience the
uncertainty of things, and what lieth yet unexerted in the chaos of
futurity. The uncertainty and ignorance of things to come, makes the
world new unto us by unexpected emergencies; whereby we pass not our
days in the trite road of affairs affording no novity; for the
novelizing spirit of man lives by variety, and the new faces of things.
__________________________________________________________________
THOUGH a contented mind enlargeth the dimension of little things; and
unto some 'tis wealth enough not to be poor; and others are well
content, if they be but rich enough to be honest, and to give every man
his due yet fall not into that obsolete affectation of bravery, to
throw away thy money, and to reject all honours or honourable stations
in this courtly and splendid world. Old generosity is superannuated,
and such contempt of the world out of date. No man is now like to
refuse the favour of great ones, or be content to say unto princes,
stand out of my sun. [72] And if any there be of such antiquated
resolutions, they are not like to be tempted out of them by great ones;
and 'tis fair if they escape the name of hypocondriacks from the genius
of latter times, unto whom contempt of the world is the most
contemptible opinion; and to be able, like Bias, to carry all they have
about them were to be the eighth wise-man. However, the old tetrick
philosophers [73] look'd always with indignation upon such a face of
things; and observing the unnatural current of riches, power, and
honour in the world, and withal the imperfection and demerit of persons
often advanced unto them, were tempted unto angry opinions, that
affairs were ordered more by stars than reason, and that things went on
rather by lottery than election.
__________________________________________________________________
IF thy vessel be but small in the ocean of this world, if meanness of
possessions be thy allotment upon earth, forget not those virtues which
the great disposer of all bids thee to entertain from thy quality and
condition; that is, submission, humility, content of mind, and
industry. Content may dwell in all stations. To be low, but above
contempt, may be high enough to be happy. But many of low degree may be
higher than computed, and some cubits above the common commensuration;
for in all states virtue gives qualifications and allowances, which
make out defects. Rough diamonds are sometimes mistaken for pebbles;
and meanness may be rich in accomplishments, which riches in vain
desire. If our merits be above our stations, if our intrinsecal value
be greater than what we go for, or our value than our valuation, and if
we stand higher in God's, than in the Censor's book; [74] it may make
some equitable balance in the inequalities of this world, and there may
be no such vast chasm or gulph between disparities as common measures
determine. The Divine eye looks upon high and low differently from that
of man. They who seem to stand upon Olympus, [75] and high mounted unto
our eyes, may be but in the valleys, and low ground unto his; for he
looks upon those as highest who nearest approach his Divinity, and upon
those as lowest who are farthest from it.
__________________________________________________________________
WHEN thou lookest upon the imperfections of others, allow one eye for
what is laudable in them, and the balance they have from some
excellency, which may render them considerable. While we look with fear
or hatred upon the teeth of the viper, we may behold his eye with love.
In venemous natures something may be amiable: poisons afford
antipoisons: nothing is totally, or altogether uselessly bad. Notable
virtues are sometimes dashed with notorious vices, and in some vicious
tempers have been found illustrious acts of virtue; which makes such
observable worth in some actions of king Demetrius, Antonius, and Ahab,
as are not to be found in the fame kind in Aristides, Numa, or David.
Constancy, generosity, clemency, and liberality, have been highly
conspicuous in some persons not mark'd out in other concerns for
example or imitation. But since goodness is exemplary in all, if others
have not our virtues, let us not be wanting in theirs; nor scorning
them for their vices whereof we are free, be condemned by their virtues
wherein we are deficient. There is dross, alloy, and embasement in all
human tempers; and he flieth without wings, who thinks to find ophir or
pure metal in any. For perfection is not, like light, center'd in any
one body; but, like the dispersed seminalities of vegetables at the
creation, scattered through the whole mass of the earth, no place
producing all, and almost all some. So that 'tis well, if a perfect man
can be made out of many men, and, to the perfect eye of God, even out
of mankind. Time, which perfects some things, imperfects also others.
Could we intimately apprehend the ideated man, and as he flood in the
intellect of God upon the first exertion by creation, we might more
narrowly comprehend our present degeneration, and how widely we are
fallen from the pure exemplar and idea of our nature: for after this
corruptive elongation from a primitive and pure creation, we are almost
lost in degeneration; and Adam hath not only fallen from his Creator,
but we ourselves from Adam, our Tycho [76] and primary generator.
__________________________________________________________________
QUARREL not rashly with adversities not yet understood; and overlook
not the mercies often bound up in them: for we consider not
sufficiently the good of evils, nor fairly compute the mercies of
Providence in things afflictive at first hand. The famous Andreas Doria
being invited to a feast by Aloysio Fieschi with design to kill him,
just the night before fell mercifully into a fit of the gout and so
escaped that mischief. When Cato intended to kill himself, from a blow
which he gave his servant, who would not reach his sword unto him, his
hand so swell'd that he had much ado to effect his design. Hereby any
one but a resolved Stoick might have taken a fair hint of
consideration, and that some merciful genius would have contrived his
preservation. To be sagacious in such intercurrences is not
superstition, but wary and pious discretion; and to contemn such hints
were to be deaf unto the speaking hand of God, wherein Socrates and
Cardan [77] would hardly have been mistaken.
__________________________________________________________________
BREAK not open the gate of destruction, and make no haste or bustle
unto ruin. Post not heedlessly on unto the non ultra of folly, or
precipice of perdition. Let vicious ways have their tropicks [78] and
deflexions, and swim in the waters of sin but as in the Asphaltick
lake, [79] though smeared and defiled, not to sink to the bottom. If
thou hast dipt thy foot in the brink, yet venture not over Rubicon.
[80] Run not into extremities from whence there is no regression. In
the vicious ways of the world it mercifully falleth out that we become
not extempore wicked, but it taketh some time and pains to undo
ourselves. We fall not from virtue, like Vulcan from heaven, in a day.
Bad dispositions require some time to grow into bad habits; bad habits
must undermine good, and often repeated acts make us habitually evil:
so that by gradual depravations, and while we are but staggeringly
evil, we are not left without parentheses of considerations, thoughtful
rebukes, and merciful interventions, to recal us unto ourselves. For
the wisdom of God hath methodiz'd the course of things unto the best
advantage of goodness, and thinking considerators overlook not the
tract thereof.
__________________________________________________________________
SINCE men and women have their proper virtues and vices; and even twins
of different sexes have not only distinct coverings in the womb, but
differing qualities and virtuous habits after; transplace not their
proprieties, nor confound not their distinctions. Let masculine and
feminine accomplishments shine in their proper orbs, and adorn their
respective subjects. However unite not the vices of both sexes in one;
be not monstrous in iniquity, nor hermaphroditically vitious.
__________________________________________________________________
IF generous honesty, valour, and plain dealing, be the cognisance of
thy family, or charateristick of thy country, hold fast such
inclinations suckt in with thy first breath, and which lay in the
cradle with thee. Fall not into transforming degenerations, which under
the old name create a new nation. Be not an alien in thine own nation;
bring not Orontes into Tiber; [81] learn the virtues not the vices of
thy foreign neighbours, and make thy imitation by discretion not
contagion. Feel something of thyself in the noble acts of thy
ancestors, and find in thine own genius that of thy predecessors. Rest
not under the expired merits of others, shine by those of thy own.
Flame not like the central fire which enlightneth no eyes, which no man
seeth, and most men think there's no such thing to be seen. Add one ray
unto the common lustre; add not only to the number but the note of thy
generation; and prove not a cloud but an asterisk [82] in thy region.
__________________________________________________________________
SINCE thou hast an alarum [83] in thy breast, which tells thee thou
hast a living spirit in thee above two thousand times in an hour; dull
not away thy days in slothful supinity and the tediousness of doing
nothing. To strenuous minds there is an inquietude in overquietness,
and no laboriousness in labour; and to tread a mile after the flow pace
of a snail, or the heavy measures of the lazy of Brazilia, [84] were a
most tiring pennance, and worse than a race of some furlongs at the
Olympicks. [85] The rapid courses of the heavenly bodies are rather
imitable by our thoughts, than our corporeal motions; yet the solemn
motions of our lives amount unto a greater measure than is commonly
apprehended. Some few men have surrounded the globe of the earth; yet
many in the set locomotions and movements of their days have measured
the circuit of it, and twenty thousand miles have been exceeded by
them. Move circumspectly not meticulously, [86] and rather carefully
sollicitous than anxiously sollicitudinous. Think not there is a lion
in the way, nor walk with leaden sandals in the paths of goodness; but
in all virtuous motions let prudence determine thy measures. Strive not
to run like Hercules, a furlong in a breath: festination may prove
precipitation; deliberating delay may be wise cunctation, and slowness
no slothfulness.
__________________________________________________________________
SINCE virtuous actions have their own trumpets, and, without any nose
from thyself, will have their resound abroad; busy not thy best member
in the encomium of thyself. Praise is a debt we owe unto the virtues of
others, and due unto our own from all, whom malice hath not made mutes,
or envy struck dumb. Fall not, however, into the common prevaricating
way of self-commendation and boasting, by denoting the imperfections of
others. He who discommendeth others obliquely, commendeth himself. He
who whispers their infirmities, proclaims his own exemption from them;
and, consequently, says, I am not as this publican, or hic niger, [87]
whom I talk of. Open ostentation and loud vain-glory is more tolerable
than this obliquity, as but containing some froth no ink, as but
confining of a personal piece of folly, nor complicated with
uncharitableness. Superfluously we seek a precarious applause abroad:
every good man hath his plaudite [88] within himself; and though his
tongue be fluent, is not without loud cymbals in his breast. Conscience
will become his panegyrist, and never forget to crown and extol him
unto himself.
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BLESS not thyself only that thou wert born in Athens; [89] but, among
thy multiplied acknowledgements, lift up one hand unto heaven, that
thou wert born of honest parents; that modesty, humility, patience, and
veracity, lay in the same egg, and came into the world with thee. From
such foundations thou mayst be happy in a virtuous precocity, [90] and
make an early and long walk in goodness; so mayst thou more naturally
feel the contrariety of vice unto nature, and resist some by the
antidote of thy temper. As charity covers, so modesty preventeth a
multitude of sins; withholding from noon-day vices and brazen-brow'd
iniquities, from sinning on the house-top, and painting our follies
with the rays of the sun. Where this virtue reigneth, though vice may
show its head, it cannot be in its glory. Where shame of sin sets, look
not for virtue to arise; for when modesty taketh wing, Astraea [91]
goes soon after.
__________________________________________________________________
THE heroical vein of mankind runs much in the soldiery, and courageous
part of the world; and in that form we oftenest find men above men.
History is full of the gallantry of that tribe; and when we read their
notable acts, we easily find what a difference there is between a life
in Plutarch [92] and in Laertius. [93] Where true fortitude dwells,
loyalty, bounty, friendship, and fidelity may be found. A man may
confide in persons constituted for noble ends, who dare do and suffer,
and who have a hand to burn for their country and their friend. [94]
Small and creeping things are the product of petty souls. He is like to
be mistaken, who makes choice of a covetous man for a friend, or
relieth upon the reed of narrow and poltron friendship. Pitiful things
are only to be found in the cottages of such breath; but bright
thoughts, clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty, and generous
honesty are the gems of noble minds; wherein, to derogate from none,
the true heroick English gentleman hath no peer.
__________________________________________________________________
[24] Narrow, like the walk of a rope-dancer.
[25] The table or picture of Cebes, an allegorical representation of
the characters and conditions of mankind; which is translated by Mr.
Collier, and added to the meditations of Antoninus.
[26] Picture.
[27] Over the pacifick ocean, in the course of the ship which now sails
from Acapulco to Manilla, perhaps formerly from Lima, or more properly
from Callao, Lima not being a seaport.
[28] "Sudden gusts, or violent attacks of bad weather."
[29] That is, "in armour, in a state of military vigilance." One of the
Grecian chiefs used to represent open force by the "lion's skin," and
policy by the "fox's tail."
[30] Ovation, a petty and minor kind of triumph. Note to the first
edition.
[31] That is, "thy turbulent and irascible passions." For the
Lapithytes and Centaurs, see Ovid.
[32] The Censor, who is frequently confounded, and by Pope amongst
others, with Cato of Utica.
[33] "With their faculties unimpaired."
[34] Atropos is the lady of destiny that cuts the thread of life.
[35] Ecclesiasticus.
[36] Luke.
[37] ' The ides was the time when money lent out at interest was
commonly repaid.
Foenerator Alphius
Suam religit Idibus pecuniam,
Quaetrit calendis ponere.
Hor.
[38] Not deeply tinged, not died in grain.
[39] That is, "with a position as immutable as that of the magnetical
axis," which is popularly supposed to be invariably parallel to the
meridian, or to stand exactly north and south.
[40] Optimi malorum pessimi bonorum. First edit.
[41] A paraphrase or amplification.
[42] Alluding to the flood of Noah.
[43]
--Dulcique fenex vicinus Hymetto,
Qui partem acceptae saeva inter vincla cicutae,
Accusatori nollet dare.
Juv.
Not so mild Thales, nor Chrysippus thought;
Nor the good man who drank the pois'nous draught
With mind serene, and could not wish to see
His vile accuser drink as deep as he:
Exalted Socrates!--
Creech.
[44] Even when the days are shortest. First edit.
[45] Alluding unto the tower of oblivion mentioned by Procopius, which
was the name of a tower of imprisonment among the Persians: whoever was
put therein was as it were buried alive, and it was death for any but
to name him. First edit.
[46] See Aritiotle's Ethicks, chapter of Magnanimity. Note to the first
edit.
[47] Holy, holy, holy. First edit.
[48] The powers of vengeance.
[49] An epicycle is a small revolution made by one planet in the wider
orbit of another planet. The meaning is, "Let not ambition form thy
circle of action, but move upon other principles; and let ambition only
operate as something extrinsick and adventitious."
[50] Matthew xi.
[51] That is, "the king of the Stoics," whole founder was Zeno, and who
held, that the wife man alone had power and royalty.
[52] Alluding to the Dory of Ulysses, who stopped the ears of his
companions with wax when they passed by the Sirens.
[53] A phylactery is a writing bound upon the forehead, containing
something to be kept constantly in mind. This was practised by the
Jewish doctors with regard to the Mosaic law.
[54] Particular journals of every day, not abstracts comprehending
several years under one notation. An Ephemeris is a diary, an Olympiad
is the space of four years.
[55] That is, "do not speak much or long in justification of "thy
faults." The antient pleaders talked by a Clepsydra, or measurer of
time.
[56] Th a theta inscribed upon the judge's tessera or ballot was a mark
for death or capital condemnation.
[57]
--Se
Judice nemo nocens absolvitur.
Juv.
[58] Damocles was a flatterer of Dionysius.
[59] Appearances without realities.
[60] Tickling, flattering. A clawback is an old word for a flatterer.
Jewel calls some writers for popery "the pope's clawbacks."
[61] That is, "though we bleed when we are wounded, though we find in
ourselves the imperfections of humanity."
[62] As Alexander the Great did. First edit.
[63] Opposites.
[64] Only placed at a distance in the same line.
[65] Circenses were Roman horse-races.
[66] Fencing-match.
[67] The Retiarius or Laquearius was a prize-fighter, who entangled his
opponent in a net, which by some dexterous management he threw upon
him.
[68] The Liparaean islands, near Italy, being volcanos, were fabled to
contain the forges of the Cyclops.
[69] Thy lawgiver.
[70] Moved not by choice, but by some mechanical impulse.
[71] The short sentence written on the wall of Belshazzar. See Daniel.
[72] This was the answer made by Diogenes to Alexander, who asked him
what he had to request.
[73] Sour, morose.
[74] The book in which the Census, or account of every man's estate,
was registered among the Romans.
[75] An high mountain.
[76] Ho tuchon qui facit, Ho tuchon qui adeptus est: he that makes, or
he that possesses; as Adam might be said to contain within him the race
of mankind.
[77] Socrates, and Cardan, perhaps in imitation of him, talked of an
attendant spirit or genius, that hinted from time to time how they
should act.
[78] The tropick is the point where the sun turns back.
[79] The lake of Sodom; the waters of which being very salt, and,
therefore, heavy, will scarcely suffer an animal to sink.
[80] The river, by crossing which Caesar declared war against the
senate.
[81] In Tiberim defluxit Orontes: "Orontes has mingled her stream with
the Tiber," says Juvenal, speaking of the confluence of foreigners to
Rome.
[82] A small star.
[83] The motion of the heart, which beats about sixty times in a
minute; or, perhaps, the motion of respiration, which is nearer to the
number mentioned.
[84] An animal called more commonly the Sloth, which is said to be
several days in climbing a tree.
[85] The Olympick games, of which the race was one of the chief.
[86] Timidly.
[87] Hic niger est, hunc to Romane caveto. Hor. First edit.
This man is vile; here, Roman, fix your mark;
His soul is black, as his complexion's dark.
Francis.
[88] Plaudite was the term by which the antient theatrical performers
solicited a clap.
[89] As Socrates did. Athens a place of learning and civility. First
edit.
[90] A ripeness preceding the usual time.
[91] Astraea Goddess of justice and consequently of all virtue. First
edit.
[92] Who wrote the lives, for the most part, of warriors.
[93] Who wrote the lives of philosophers.
[94] Like Mutius Saevola.
__________________________________________________________________
CHRISTIAN MORALS.
PART II.
PUNISH not thyself with pleasure; glut not thy sense with palative
delights; nor revenge the contempt of temperance by the penalty of
satiety. Were there an age of delight or any pleasure durable, who
would not honour Volupia? but the race of delight is sport, and
pleasures have mutable faces. The pleasures of one age are not
pleasures in another, and their lives fall short of our own. Even in
our sensual days, the strength of delight [95] is in its seldomness or
rarity, and sting in its satiety: mediocrity is its life, and
immoderacy its confusion. The luxurious emperors of old inconsiderately
satiated themselves with the dainties of sea and land, till, wearied
through all varieties, their refections became a study unto them, and
they were fain to feed by invention: novices in true Epicurism! which
by mediocrity, paucity, quick and healthful appetite, makes delights
smartly acceptable; whereby Epicurus himself found Jupiter's brain [96]
in a piece of Cytheridian cheese, and the tongues of nightingales [97]
in a dish of onions. Hereby healthful and temperate poverty hath the
start of nauseating luxury; unto whose clear and naked appetite every
meal is a feast, and in one single dish the first course of Metellus;
[98] who are cheaply hungry, and never lose their hunger, or advantage
of a craving appetite, because obvious food contents it; while Nero,
[99] half famish'd, could not feed upon a piece of bread, and, lingring
after his snowed water, hardly got down an ordinary cup of Calda. [100]
By such circumscriptions of pleasure the contemned philosophers
reserved unto themselves the secret of delight, which the Helluo's
[101] of those days lost in their exorbitances. In vain we study
delight: it is at the command of every sober mind, and in every sense
born with us: but nature, who teacheth us the rule of pleasure,
instructeth also in the bounds thereof, and where its line expireth.
And therefore temperate minds, not pressing their pleasures until the
sting appeareth, enjoy their contentations contentedly, and without
regret, and so escape the folly of excess, to be pleased unto
displacency.
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BRING candid eyes unto the perusal of men's works, and let not Zoilism
[102] or detraction blast well-intended labours. He that endureth no
faults in men's writings must only read his own, wherein for the most
part all appeareth white. Quotation mistakes, inadvertency, expedition,
and human lapses, may make not only moles but warts in learned authors;
who, notwithstanding, being judged by the capital matter, admit not of
disparagement. I should unwillingly affirm that Cicero was but slightly
versed in Homer, because in his work "De Gloria" he ascribed those
verses unto Ajax, which were delivered by Hector. What if Plautus in
the account of Hercules mistaketh nativity for conception? Who would
have mean thoughts of Apollinaris Sidonius, who seems to mistake the
river Tigris for Euphrates? and though a good historian and learned
bishop of Avergne had the misfortune to be out in the story of David,
making mention of him when the ark was sent back by the Philistins upon
a cart; which was before his time. Though I have no great opinion of
Machiavel's learning, yet I shall not presently say that he was but a
novice in Roman history, because he was mistaken in placing Commodus
after the emperor Severus. Capital truths are to be narrowly eyed;
collateral lapses and circumstantial deliveries not to be too strictly
sifted. And if the substantial subject be well forged out, we need not
examine the sparks which irregularly fly from it.
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LET well-weighed considerations, not stiff and peremptory assumptions,
guide thy discourses, pen, and actions. To begin or continue our works
like Trismegistus of old, "verum certe verum atque verissimum est,"
[103] would sound arrogantly unto present ears in this strict enquiring
age; wherein, for the most part, probably, and perhaps, will hardly
serve to mollify the spirit of captious contradictors. If Cardan faith
that a parrot is a beautiful bird, Scaliger will set his wits o' work
to prove it a deformed animal. The compage of all physical truths is
not so closely jointed, but opposition may find intrusion; nor always
so closely maintained, as not to suffer attrition. Many positions seem
quodlibetically [104] constituted, and like a Delphian blade [105] will
cut on both sides. Some truths seem almost falshoods, and some
falshoods almost truths; wherein falshood and truth seem almost
aequilibriously stated, and but a few grains of distinction to bear
down the balance. Some have digged deep, yet glanced by the royal vein;
[106] and a man may come unto the Pericardium, [107] but not the heart
of truth. Besides, many things are known, as some are seen, that is by
Parallaxis, [108] or at some distance from their true and proper
beings, the superficial regard of things having a different aspect from
their true and central natures. And this moves sober pens unto
suspensory and timorous assertions, nor presently to obtrude them as
Sibyls' leaves, [109] which after considerations may find to be but
solious apparances, and not the central and vital interiors of truth.
__________________________________________________________________
VALUE the judicious, and let not mere acquests in minor parts of
learning gain thy preexistimation. 'Tis an unjust way of compute, to
magnify a weak head for some Latin abilities; and to undervalue a solid
judgment, because he knows not the genealogy of Hector. When that
notable king of France [110] would have his son to know but one
sentence in Latin, had it been a good one, perhaps it had been enough.
Natural parts and good judgments rule the world. States are not
governed by ergotisms. [111] Many have ruled well, who could not,
perhaps, define a commonwealth; and they who understand not the globe
of the earth, command a great part of it. Where natural logick prevails
not, artificial too often faileth. Where nature fills the sails, the
vessel goes smoothly on; and when judgment is the pilot, the ensurance
need not be high. When industry builds upon nature, we may expel
pyramids: where that foundation is wanting, the structure must be low.
They do most by books, who could do much without them; and he that
chiefly owes himself unto himself, is the substantial man.
__________________________________________________________________
LET thy studies be free as thy thoughts and contemplations: but fly not
only upon the wings of imagination; join sense unto reason, and
experiment unto speculation, and so give life unto embryon truths, and
verities yet in their chaos. There is nothing more acceptable unto the
ingenious world, than this noble eluctation [112] of truth; wherein,
against the tenacity of prejudice and prescription, this century now
prevaileth. What libraries of new volumes aftertimes will behold, and
in what a new world of knowledge the eyes of our posterity may be
happy, a few ages may joyfully declare; and is but a cold thought unto
those, who cannot hope to behold this exantlation of truth, or that
obscured virgin half out of the pit: which might make some content with
a commutation of the time of their lives, and to commend the fancy of
the Pythagorean metempsychosis; [113] whereby they might hope to enjoy
this happiness in their third or fourth selves, and behold that in
Pythagoras, which they now but foresee in Euphorbus. [114] The world,
which took but six days to make, is like to take six thousand to make
out: meanwhile old truths voted down begin to resume their places, and
new ones arise upon us; wherein there is no comfort in the happiness of
Tully's Elizium, [115] or any satisfaction from the ghosts of the
antients, who knew so little of what is now well known. Men disparage
not antiquity, who prudently exalt new enquiries; and make not them the
judges of truth, who were but fellow enquirers of it. Who can but
magnify the endeavours of Aristotle, and the noble start which learning
had under him; or less than pity the slender progression made upon such
advantages? while many centuries were lost in repetitions and
transcriptions sealing up the book of knowledge. And therefore rather
than to swell the leaves of learning by fruitless repetitions, to sing
the fame song in all ages, nor adventure at essays beyond the attempt
of others, many would be content that some would write like Helmont or
Paracelsus; [116] and be willing to endure the monstrosity of some
opinions, for divers singular notions requiting such aberrations.
__________________________________________________________________
DESPISE not the obliquities of younger ways, nor despair of better
things whereof there is yet no prospect. Who would imagine that
Diogenes, who in his younger days was a falsifier of money, should in
the after-course of his life be so great a contemner of metal? Some
Negros who believe the resurrection, think that they shall rise white.
[117] Even in this life, regeneration may imitate resurrection; our
black and vicious tinctures may wear off, and goodness clothe us with
candour. Good admonitions knock not always in vain. There will be
signal examples of God's mercy, and the angels must not want their
charitable rejoices for the conversion of lost sinners. Figures of most
angles do nearest approach unto circles, which have no angles at all.
Some may be near unto goodness, who are conceived far from it; and many
things happen, not likely to ensue from any promises of antecedencies.
Culpable beginnings have found commendable conclusions, and infamous
courses pious retractations. Detestable sinners have proved exemplary
converts on earth, and may be glorious in the apartment of Mary
Magdalen in heaven. Men are not the fame through all divisions of their
ages: time, experience, self-reflexions, and God's mercies, make in
some well-temper'd minds a kind of translation before death, and men to
differ from themselves as well as from other persons. Hereof the old
world afforded many examples to the infamy of latter ages, wherein men
too often live by the rule of their inclinations; so that, without any
astral prediction, the first day gives the last: [118] men are commonly
as they were; or rather, as bad dispositions run into worser habits,
the evening doth not crown, but sowerly conclude the day.
__________________________________________________________________
IF the Almighty will not spare us according to his merciful
capitulation at Sodom; if his goodness please not to pass over a great
deal of bad for a small pittance of good, or to look upon us in the
lump; there is slender hope for mercy, or sound presumption of
fulfilling half his will, either in persons or nations: they who excel
in some virtues being so often defective in others; few men driving at
the extent and amplitude of goodness, but computing themselves by their
best parts, and others by their worst, are content to rest in those
virtues which others commonly want. Which makes this speckled face of
honesty in the world; and which was the imperfection of the old
philosophers and great pretenders unto virtue, who well declining the
gaping vices of intemperance, incontinency, violence and oppression,
were yet blindly peccant in iniquities of closer faces, were envious,
malicious, contemners, scoffers, censurers, and stuft with vizard
vices, no less depraving the ethereal particle and diviner portion of
man. For envy, malice, hatred, are the qualities of Satan, close and
dark like himself; and where such brands smoke, the soul cannot be
white. Vice may be had at all prices; expensive and costly iniquities,
which make the noise, cannot be every man's sins: but the soul may be
fouly inquinated [119] at a very low rate; and a man may be cheaply
vicious, to the perdition of himself.
__________________________________________________________________
OPINION rides upon the neck of reason; and men are happy, wise, or
learned, according as that empress shall set them down in the register
of reputation. However, weigh not thyself in the scales of thy own
opinion, but let the judgment of the judicious be the standard of thy
merit. Self-estimation is a flatterer too readily intitling us unto
knowledge and abilities, which others sollicitously labour after, and
doubtfully think they attain. Surely, such confident tempers do pass
their days in best tranquillity, who, resting in the opinion of their
own abilities, are happily gull'd by such contentation; wherein pride,
self-conceit, confidence, and opiniatrity, will hardly suffer any to
complain of imperfection. To think themselves in the right, or all that
right, or only that, which they do or think, is a fallacy of high
content; though others laugh in their sleeves, and look upon them as in
a deluded state of judgment: wherein, notwithstanding, 'twere but a
civil piece of complacency to suffer them to sleep who would not wake,
to let them rest in their securities, nor by dissent or opposition to
stagger their contentments.
__________________________________________________________________
SINCE [120] the brow speaks often true, since eyes and noses have
tongues, and the countenance proclaims the heart and inclinations; let
observation so far instruct thee in physiognomical lines, as to be some
rule for thy distinction, and guide for thy affection unto such as look
most like men. Mankind, methinks, is comprehended in a few faces, if we
exclude all visages which any way participate of symmetries and schemes
of look common unto other animals. For as though man were the extra of
the world, in whom all were "in coagulato," [121] which in their forms
were "in soluto," [122] and at extension; we often observe that men do
most act those creatures, whose constitution, parts, and complexion do
most predominate in their mixtures. This is a corner-stone in
physiognomy, and holds some truth not only in particular persons but
also in whole nations. There are, therefore, provincial faces, national
lips and noses, which testify not only the natures of those countries,
but of those which have them elsewhere. Thus we may make England the
whole earth, dividing it not only into Europe, Asia, Africa, but the
particular regions thereof; and may in some latitude affirm, that there
are AEgyptians, Scythians, Indians among us, who, though born in
England, yet carry the faces and air of those countries, and are also
agreeable and correspondent unto their natures. Faces look uniformly
unto our eyes: how they appear unto some animals of a more piercing or
differing sight, who are able to discover the inequalities, rubbs, and
hairiness of the skin, is not without good doubt: and, therefore, in
reference unto man, Cupid is said to be blind. Affection should not be
too sharp-eyed, and love is not to be made by magnifying glasses. If
things were seen as they truly are, the beauty of bodies would be much
abridged. And, therefore, the wise Contriver hath drawn the pictures
and outsides of things softly and amiably unto the natural edge of our
eyes, not leaving them able to discover those uncomely asperities,
which make oyster-shells in good faces, and hedghogs even in Venus's
moles.
__________________________________________________________________
COURT not felicity too far, and weary not the favourable hand of
fortune. Glorious actions have their times, extent, and non ultra's. To
put no end unto attempts were to make prescription of successes, and to
bespeak unhappiness at the last: for the line of our lives is drawn
with white and black vicissitudes, wherein the extremes hold seldom one
complexion. That Pompey should obtain the surname of great at
twenty-five years, that men in their young and alive days should be
fortunate and perform notable things, is no observation of deep wonder;
they having the strength of their fates before them, nor yet ailed
their parts in the world for which they were brought into it: whereas
men of years, matured for counsels and designs, seem to be beyond the
vigour of their active fortunes, and high exploits of life,
providentially ordained unto ages best agreeable unto them. And,
therefore, many brave men finding their fortune grow faint, and feeling
its declination, have timely withdrawn themselves from great attempts,
and so escaped the ends of mighty men, disproportionable to their
beginnings. But magnanimous thoughts have so dimmed the eyes of many,
that forgetting the very essence of fortune, and the vicissitude of
good and evil, they apprehend no bottom in felicity; and so have been
frill tempted on unto mighty actions, reserved for their destructions.
For fortune lays the plot of our adversities in the foundation of our
felicities, blessing us in the first quadrate, [123] to blast us more
sharply in the last. And since in the highest felicities there lieth a
capacity of the lowest miseries, she hath this advantage from our
happiness to make us truly miserable: for to become acutely miserable
we are to be first happy. Affliction smarts most in the most happy
state, as having somewhat in it of Bellisarius at beggars bush, or
Bajazet in the grate. [124] And this the fallen angels severely
understand; who having acted their first part in heaven, are made
sharply miserable by transition, and more afflictively feel the
contrary state of hell.
__________________________________________________________________
CARRY no careless eye upon the unexpected scenes of things; but ponder
the acts of Providence in the publick ends of great and notable men,
set out unto the view of all for no common memorandums. The tragical
exits and unexpected periods of some eminent persons, cannot but amuse
considerate observators; wherein, notwithstanding, most men seem to see
by extramission, [125] without reception or self-reflexion, and
conceive themselves unconcerned by the fallacy of their own exemption:
whereas, the mercy of God hath singled out but few to be the signals of
his justice, leaving the generality of mankind to the paedagogy of
example. But the inadvertency of our natures not well apprehending this
favourable method and merciful decimation, [126] and that he sheweth in
some what others also deserve; they entertain no sense of his hand
beyond the stroke of themselves. Whereupon the whole becomes
necessarily punished, and the contrasted hand of God extended unto
universal judgments: from whence, nevertheless, the stupidity of our
tempers receives but faint impressions, and in the most tragical state
of tunes holds but starts of good motions. So that to continue us in
goodness there must be iterated returns of misery, and a circulation in
afflictions is necessary. And since we cannot be wise by warnings;
since plagues are insignificant, except we be personally plagued;
since, also, we cannot be punish'd unto amendment by proxy or
commutation, nor by vicinity, but contraction; there is an unhappy
necessity that we must smart in our own skins, and the provoked arm of
the Almightly must fall upon ourselves. The capital sufferings of
others are rather our monitions than acquitments. There is but one who
died salvifically [127] for us, and able to say unto death, hitherto
shalt thou go and no farther; only one enlivening death, which makes
gardens of graves, and that which was sowed in corruption to arise and
flourish in glory: when death itself shall die, and living shall have
no period; when the damned than mourn at the funeral of death; when
life not death shall be the wages of sin; when the second death shall
prove a miserable life, and destruction shall be courted.
__________________________________________________________________
ALTHOUGH their thoughts may seem too severe, who think that few
ill-natur'd men go to heaven; yet it may be acknowledged that
good-natur'd persons are best founded for that place; who enter the
world with good dispositions and natural graces, more ready to be
advanced by impressions from above, and christianized unto pieties; who
carry about them plain and down-right dealing minds, humility, mercy,
charity, and virtues acceptable unto God and man. But whatever success
they may have as to heaven, they are the acceptable men on earth, and
happy is he who hath his quiver full of them for his friends. These are
not the dens wherein falshood lurks, and hypocrisy hides its head;
wherein frowardness makes its nest; or where malice, hard-heartedness,
and oppression love to dwell; not those by whom the poor get little,
and the rich some time lose all; men not of retracted looks, but who
carry their hearts in their faces, and need not to be look'd upon with
perspectives; not sordidly or mischievously ingrateful; who cannot
learn to ride upon the neck of the afflicted, nor load the heavy laden,
but who keep the temple of Janus shut by peaceable and quiet tempers;
[128] who make not only the best friends, but the best enemies, as
easier to forgive than offend, and ready to pass by the second offence
before they avenge the first; who make natural royalists, obedient
subjects, kind and merciful princes, verified in our own, one of the
best-natur'd kings of this throne. Of the old Roman emperors the best
were the best-natur'd; though they made but a small number, and might
be writ in a ring. Many of the rest were as bad men as princes;
humourists rather than of good humours; and of good natural parts
rather than of good natures, which did but arm their bad inclinations,
and make them wittily wicked.
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WITH what shift and pains we come into the world, we remember not; but
'tis commonly found no easy matter to get out of it. Many have studied
to exasperate the ways of death, but fewer hours have been spent to
soften that necessity. That the smoothest way unto the grave is made by
bleeding, as common opinion presumeth, beside the sick and fainting
languors which accompany that effusion, the experiment in Lucan and
Seneca [129] will make us doubt; under which the noble Stoick so deeply
laboured, that, to conceal his affliction, he was fain to retire from
the sight of his wife, and not ashamed to implore the merciful hand of
his physician to shorten his misery therein. Ovid, [130] the old
heroes, and the Stoicks, who were so afraid of drowning, as dreading
thereby the extinction of their soul, which they conceived to be a
fire, stood probably in fear of an easier way of death; wherein the
water, entring the possessions of air, makes a temperate suffocation,
and kills as it were without a fever. Surely many, who have had the
spirit to destroy themselves, have not been ingenious in the
contrivance thereof. 'Twas a dull way practised by Themistocles, to
overwhelm himself with bulls-blood, [131] who, being an Athenian, might
have held an easier theory of death from the state potion of his
country; from which Socrates in Plato seemed not to suffer much more
than from the fit of an ague. Cato is much to be pitied, who mangled
himself with poniards; and Hannibal seems more subtle, who carried his
delivery, not in the point but the pummel [132] of his sword.
The Egyptians were merciful contrivers, who destroyed their malefactors
by asps, charming their senses into an invincible sleep, and killing as
it were with Hermes his rod. [133] The Turkish emperor, [134] odious
for other cruelty, was herein a remarkable master of mercy, killing his
favourite in his sleep, and sending him from the shade into the house
of darkness. He who had been thus destroyed would hardly have bled at
the presence of his destroyer: when men are already dead by metaphor,
and pass but from one sleep unto another, wanting herein the eminent
part of severity, to feel themselves to die; and escaping the sharpest
attendant of death, the lively apprehension thereof. But to learn to
die, is better than to study the ways of dying. Death will find Tome
ways to untie or cut the most gordian knots of life, and make men's
miseries as mortal as themselves: whereas evil spirits, as undying
substances, are unseparable from their calamities; and, therefore, they
everlastingly struggle under their anguftias, [135] and bound up with
immortality can never get out of themselves.
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[95] Voluptates commendat rarior usus.
[96] Cerebrum Jovis, for a delicious bit. First edit.
[97] A dish used among the luxurious of antiquity.
[98] Metellus his riotous pontifical supper, the great variety whereat
is to be seen in Macrobius. First edit. The supper was not given by
Metellus, but by Lentulus when he was made priest of Mars, and recorded
by Metellus.
[99] Nero in his flight. Sueton. First edit.
[100] Warm water. Caldae gelidaeque minister. First edit.
[101] Gluttons.
[102] From Zoilus the calumniator of Homer.
[103] In Tabula Smaragdina. First edit. "It is true, certainly true,
true in the highest degree."
[104] Determinable on either side.
[105] The Delphian sword became proverbial, not because it cut on both
sides, but because it was used to different purposes.
[106] I suppose the main vein of a mine.
[107] The integument of the heart.
[108] The parallax of a star is the difference between its real and
apparent place.
[109] On which the Sibyl wrote her oraculous answers. VIRGIL.
[110] Lewis the eleventh. Qui nescit dissimulare nescit Regnare. First
edit.
[111] Conclusions deduced according to the forms of logick.
[112] Forcible eruption.
[113] Transmigration of the soul from body to body,
[114] Ipse ego, nam memini, Trojani tempore belli
Panthoides Euphorbus eram.--Ovid. Note to the first edit.
[115] Who comforted himself that he should there converse with the old
Philosophers. First edit.
[116] Wild and enthusiastick authors of romantick chymystry.
[117] Mandelslo's travels.
[118] Primusque dies dedit extremum. First edit.
[119] Defiled.
[120] This is a very fanciful and indefensible section.
[121] "In a congealed or compressed mass."
[122] "In a state of expansion and separation."
[123] That is, "in the first part of our time," alluding to the four
quadratures of the moon.
[124] Bellisarius, after he had gained many victories, is said to have
been reduced, by the displeasure of the emperor, to actual beggary:
Bajazet, made captive by Tamerlane, is reported to have been shut up in
a cage. It may somewhat gratify those who deserve to be gratified, to
inform them that both these stories are FALSE.
[125] By the passage of sight from the eye to the object.
[126] The selection of every tenth man for punishment, a practice
sometimes used in general mutinies.
[127] "So as to procure salvation."
[128] The temple of Janus among the Romans was shut in time of peace,
and opened at a declaration of war.
[129] Seneca, having opened his veins, found the blood flow so slowly,
and death linger so long, that he was forced to quicken it by going
into a warm bath.
[130] Demito naufragium, mors mihi munus erit. Note to the first edit.
[131] Plutarch's lives. Note to the first edit.
[132] I Pummel, wherein he is said to have carried something, whereby
upon a struggle or despair he might deliver himself from all
misfortunes. First edit. Juvenal says, it was carried in a ring:--
Cannarum vindex, et tanti sanguinis ultor, Annulus.--
Nor swords at hand, nor hissing darts afar,
Are doom'd t' avenge the tedious bloody war,
But poison drawn thro' a ring's hollow plate.
Dryden.
[133] Which procured sleep by a touch.
[134] Solyman. Turkish history. Note to the first edit.
[135] Agonies.
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CHRISTIAN MORALS.
PART III.
TIS hard to find a whole age to imitate, or what century to propose for
example. Some have been far more approveable than others; but virtue
and vice, panegyricks and satyrs, scatteringly to be found in all.
History sets down not only things laudable, but abominable; things
which should never have been, or never have been known: so that noble
patterns must be fetched here and there from single persons, rather
than whole nations; and from all nations, rather than any one. The
world was early bad, and the first sin the most deplorable of any. The
younger world afforded the oldest men, and perhaps the best and the
worst, when length of days made virtuous habits heroical and
immoveable, vicious, inveterate, and irreclaimable. And since 'tis said
the imaginations of their hearts were evil, only evil, and continually
evil; it may be feared that their sins held pace with their lives; and
their longevity swelling their impieties, the longanimity of God would
no longer endure such vivacious abominations. Their impieties were
surely of a deep dye, which required the whole element of water to wash
them away, and overwhelmed their memories with themselves; and so shut
up the first windows of time, leaving no histories of those longevous
generations, when men might have been properly historians, when Adam
might have read long lectures unto Methuselah, and Methuselah unto
Noah. For had we been happy in just historical accounts of that
unparallel'd world, we might have been acquainted with wonders; and
have understood not a little of the acts and undertakings of Moses his
mighty men, and men of renown of old; which might have enlarged our
thoughts, and made the world older unto us. For the unknown part of
time shortens the estimation, if not the compute of it. What hath
escaped our knowledge, falls not under our consideration; and what is
and will be latent, is little better than non-existent.
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SOME things are dictated for our instruction, some acted for our
imitation; wherein 'tis best to ascend unto the highest conformity, and
to the honour of the exemplar. He honours God, who imitates him; for
what we virtuously imitate we approve and admire: and since we delight
not to imitate inferiors, we aggrandize and magnify those we imitate;
since also we are most apt to imitate those we love, we testify our
affection in our imitation of the inimitable. To affect to be like, may
be no imitation: to act, and not to be what we pretend to imitate, is
but a mimical conformation, and carrieth no virtue in it. Lucifer
imitated not God, when he said he would be like the Highest; and he
imitated not Jupiter, [136] who counterfeited thunder. Where imitation
can go no farther, let admiration step on, whereof there is no end in
the wisest form of men. Even angels and spirits have enough to admire
in their sublimer natures; admiration being the act of the creature,
and not of God, who doth not admire himself. Created natures allow of
swelling hyperboles: nothing can be said hyperbolically of God, nor
will his attributes admit of expressions above their own exuperances.
[137] Trismegistus his circle, whose center is every where, and
circumference no where, was no hyperbole. Words cannot exceed, where
they cannot express enough. Even the most winged thoughts fall at the
setting out, and reach not the portal of Divinity.
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IN bivious theorems, [138] and Janus-faced doctrines, let virtuous
considerations state the determination. Look upon opinions as thou dost
upon the moon, and choose not the dark hemisphere for thy
contemplation. Embrace not the opacous and blind side of opinions, but
that which looks most luciferously or influentially unto goodness. Tis
better to think that there are guardian spirits, than that there are no
spirits to guard us; that vicious persons are slaves, than that there
is any servitude in virtue; that times past have been better than times
present, than that times were always bad; and that to be men it
sufficeth to be no better than men in all ages, and so promiscuously to
swim down the turbid stream, and make up the grand confusion. Sow not
thy understanding with opinions, which make nothing of iniquities, and
fallaciously extenuate transgressions. Look upon vices and vicious
objects, with hyperbolical eyes; and rather enlarge their dimensions,
that their unseen deformities may not escape thy sense, and their
poisonous parts and stings may appear massy and monstrous unto thee:
for the undiscerned particles and atoms of evil deceive us, and we are
undone by the invisibles of seeming goodness. We are only deceived in
what is not discerned, and to err is but to be blind or dim-lighted as
to some perceptions.
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TO be honest in a right line, [139] and virtuous by epitome, be firm
unto such principles of goodness, as carry in them volumes of
instruction and may abridge thy labour. And since instructions are
many, hold close unto those, whereon the rest depend: so may we have
all in a few, and the law and the prophets in a rule; the Sacred Writ
in stenography, [140] and the Scripture in a nut-shell. To pursue the
osseous and solid part of goodness, which gives stability and rectitude
to all the rest; to settle on fundamental virtues, and bid early
defiance unto mother-vices, which carry in their bowels the seminals of
other iniquities; makes a short cut in goodness, and strikes not off an
head but the whole neck of Hydra. For we are carried into the dark
lake, like the AEgyptian river into the sea, by seven principal
ostiaries: the mother-sins [141] of that number are the deadly engins
of evil spirits that undo us, and even evil spirits themselves; and he
who is under the chains thereof is not without a possession. Mary
Magdalene had more than seven devils, if these with their imps were in
her; and he who is thus possessed, may literally be named "Legion."
Where such plants grow and prosper, look for no champain or region void
of thorns; but productions like the tree of Goa, [142] and forests of
abomination.
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GUIDE not the hand of God, nor order the finger of the Almighty unto
thy will and pleasure; but sit quiet in the soft showers of Providence,
and favourable distributions in this world, either to thyself or
others. And since not only judgments have their errands, but mercies
their commissions; snatch not at every favour, nor think thyself passed
by if they fall upon thy neighbour. Rake not up envious displacences at
things successful unto others, which the WISE DISPOSER of all thinks
not fit for thyself. Reconcile the events of things unto both beings,
that is, of this world and the next: so will there not seem so many
riddles in Providence, nor various inequalities in the dispensation of
things below. If thou dost not anoint thy face, yet put not on
sackcloth at the felicities of others. Repining at the good, draws on
rejoicing at the evils of others: and so falls into that inhumane vice,
[143] for which so few languages have a name. The blessed Spirits above
rejoice at our happiness below: but to be glad at the evils of one
another, is beyond the malignity of hell; and falls not on evil
spirits, who, tho' they rejoice at our unhappiness, take no pleasure at
the afflictions of their own society or of their fellow natures.
Degenerous heads! who must be fain to learn from such examples, and to
be taught from the school of hell.
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GRAIN [144] not thy vicious stains; nor deepen those swart tinctures,
which temper, infirmity, or ill habits have set upon thee; and fix not,
by iterated depravations, what time might efface, or virtuous washes
expunge. He, who thus still advanceth in iniquity, deepneth his
deformed hue; turns a shadow into night, and makes himself a Negro in
the black jaundice; and so becomes one of those lost ones, the
disproportionate pores of whose brains afford no entrance unto good
motions, but reflect and frustrate all counsels, deaf unto the thunder
of the laws, and rocks unto the cries of charitable commiserators. He
who hath had the patience of Diogenes, to make orations unto statues,
may more sensibly apprehend how all words fall to the ground, spent
upon such a surd and earless generation of men, stupid unto all
instruction, and rather requiring an exorcist than an orator for their
conversion!
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BURDEN not the back of Aries, Leo, or Taurus, [145] with thy faults;
nor make Saturn, Mars, or Venus, guilty of thy follies. Think not to
fasten thy imperfections on the stars, and so despairingly conceive
thyself under a fatality of being evil. Calculate thyself within; seek
not thyself in the moon, but in thine own orb or microcosmical
circumference. [146] Let celestial aspects admonish and advertise, not
conclude and determine thy ways. For since good and bad stars moralize
not our actions, and neither excuse or commend, acquit or condemn our
good or bad deeds at the present or last bar; since some are
astrologically well disposed, who are morally highly vicious; not
celestial figures, but virtuous schemes, must denominate and state our
actions. If we rightly understood the names whereby God calleth the
stars; if we knew his name for the dog-star, or by what appellation
Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn obey his will; it might be a welcome
accession unto astrology, which speaks great things, and is fain to
make use of appellations from Greek and barbarick systems. Whatever
influences, impulsions, or inclinations there be from the lights above,
it were a piece of wisdom to make one of those wise men who overrule
their stars, [147] and with their own militia contend with the host of
heaven. Unto which attempt there want not auxiliaries from the whole
strength of morality, supplies from christian ethicks, influences also
and illuminations from above, more powerful than the lights of heaven.
__________________________________________________________________
CONFOUND not the distinctions of thy life which nature hath divided;
that is, youth, adolescence, manhood, and old age: nor in these divided
periods, wherein thou art in a manner four, conceive thyself but one.
Let every division be happy in its proper virtues, nor one vice run
through all. Let each distinction have its salutary transition, and
critically deliver thee from the imperfections of the former; so
ordering the whole, that prudence and virtue may have the largest
section. Do as a child but when thou art a child, and ride not on a
reed at twenty. He who hath not taken leave of the follies of his
youth, and in his maturer state scarce got out of that division,
disproportionately divideth his days, crowds up the latter part of his
life, and leaves too narrow a corner for the age of wisdom; and so hath
room to be a man, scarce longer than he hath been a youth. Rather than
to make this confusion, anticipate the virtues of age, and live long
without the infirmities of it. So mayst thou count up thy days as some
do Adam's, [148] that is by anticipation; so mayst thou be coetaneous
unto thy elders, and a father unto thy contemporaries.
__________________________________________________________________
WHILE others are curious in the choice of good air, and chiefly
sollicitous for healthful habitations, study thou conversation, and be
critical in thy consortion. The aspects, conjunctions, and
configurations of the stars, which mutually diversify, intend, or
qualify their influences, are but the varieties of their nearer or
farther conversation with one another, and like the consortion of men,
whereby they become better or worse, and even exchange their natures.
Since men live by examples, and will be imitating something; order thy
imitation to thy improvement, not thy ruin. Look not for rotes in
Attalus his garden, [149] or wholesome flowers in a venomous
plantation. And since there is scarce any one bad, but some others are
the worse for him; tempt not contagion by proximity, and hazard not
thyself in the shadow of corruption. He who hath not early suffered
this shipwreck, and in his younger days escaped this Charybdis, may
make a happy voyage, and not come in with black sails [150] into the
port. Self-conversation, or to be alone, is better than such
consortion. Some schoolmen tell us, that he is properly alone, with
whom in the same place there is no other of the same species.
Nabuchodonozor was alone, though among the beasts of the field; and a
wise man may be tolerably said to be alone, though with a rabble of
people little better than beasts about him. Unthinking heads, who have
not learn'd to be alone, are in a prison to themselves, if they be not
also with others: whereas, on the contrary, they whose thoughts are in
a fair, and hurry within, are sometimes fain to retire into company, to
be out of the crowd of themselves. He who must needs have company, must
needs have sometimes bad company. Be able to be alone. Lose not the
advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself; nor be only content,
but delight to be alone and single with Omnipresency. He who is thus
prepared, the day is not uneasy nor the night black unto him. Darkness
may bound his eyes, not his imagination. In his bed he may lie, like
Pompey and his sons, in all quarters of the earth; [151] may speculate
the universe, and enjoy the whole world in the hermitage of himself.
Thus the old Ascetick christians found a paradise in a desert, and with
little converse on earth held a conversation in heaven; thus they
astronomiz'd in caves, and though they beheld not the stars, had the
glory of heaven before them.
__________________________________________________________________
LET the characters of good things stand indelibly in thy mind, and thy
thoughts be active on them. Trust not too much unto suggestions from
reminiscential amulets, [152] or artificial memorandums. Let the
mortifying Janus of Covarrubias [153] be in thy daily thoughts, not
only on thy hand and signets. Rely not alone upon fluent and dumb
remembrances. Behold not death's heads till thou doest not see them,
nor look upon mortifying objects till thou overlook'st them. Forget not
how assuefaction unto any thing minorates the passion from it; how
constant objects lose their hints, and steal an inadvertisement upon
us. There is no excuse to forget what every thing prompts unto us. To
thoughtful observators, the whole world is a phylactery; [154] and
every thing we see an item of the wisdom, power, or goodness of God.
Happy are they who verify their amulets, and make their phylacteries
speak in their lives and actions. To run on in despight of the
revulsions and pull-backs of such remoras, aggravates our
transgressions. When death's-heads on our hands have no influence upon
our heads, and fleshless cadavers abate not the exorbitances of the
flesh; when crucifixes upon men's hearts suppress not their bad
commotions, and his image who was murdered for us withholds not from
blood and murder; phylacteries prove but formalities, and their
despised hints sharpen our condemnations.
__________________________________________________________________
LOOK not for whales in the Euxine sea, or expect great matters where
they are not to be found. Seek not for profundity in shallowness, or
fertility in a wilderness. Place not the expectation of great happiness
here below, or think to find heaven on earth; wherein we must be
content with embryon-felicities, and fruitions of doubtful faces: for
the circle of our felicities makes but short arches. In every clime we
are in a periscian state; [155] and, with our light, our shadow and
darkness walk about us. Our contentments stand upon the tops of
pyramids ready to fall off, and the insecurity of their enjoyments
abrupteth our tranquillities. What we magnify is magnificent, but, like
to the Colossus, noble without, stuft with rubbidge and coarfe metal
within. Even the sun, whose glorious outside we behold, may have dark
and smoky entrails. In vain we admire the lustre of any thing seen:
that which is truly glorious, is invisible. Paradise was but a part of
the earth, lost not only to our fruition but our knowledge. And if,
according to old dictates, no man can be said to be happy before death;
the happiness of this life goes for nothing before it be over, and
while we think ourselves happy we do but usurp that name. Certainly,
true beatitude groweth not on earth, nor hath this world in it the
expectations we have of it. He swims in oil, [156] and can hardly avoid
sinking, who hath such light foundations to support him: 'tis,
therefore, happy, that we have two worlds to hold on. To enjoy true
happiness, we must travel into a very far country, and even out of
ourselves; for the pearl we seek for is not to be found in the Indian,
but in the Empyrean ocean. [157]
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ANSWER not the spur of fury, and be not prodigal or prodigious in
revenge. Make not one in the Historia horribilis; [158] stay not thy
servant for a broken glass, [159] nor pound him in a mortar who
offendeth thee; [160] supererogate not in the worst sense, and overdo
not the necessities of evil; humour not the injustice of revenge. Be
not stoically mistaken in the equality of sins, nor commutatively
iniquous in the valuation of transgressions; but weigh them in the
scales of heaven, and by the weights of righteous reason. Think that
revenge too high, which is but level with the offence. Let thy arrows
of revenge fly short; or be aimed like those of Jonathan, to fall
beside the mark. Too many there be to whom a dead enemy smells well,
and who find musk and amber in revenge. The ferity of such minds holds
no rule in retaliations, requiring too often a head for a tooth, and
the supreme revenge for trespasses which a night's rest should
obliterate. But patient meekness takes injuries like pills, not chewing
but swallowing them down, laconically suffering, and fluently passing
them over; while angered pride makes a nose, like Homerican Mars, [161]
at every scratch of offences. Since women do most delight in revenge,
[162] it may seem but feminine manhood to be vindicative. If thou must
needs have thy revenge of thine enemy, with a soft tongue break his
bones, [163] heap coals of fire on his head, forgive him and enjoy it.
To forgive our enemies is a charming way of revenge, and a short
Caesarian conquest overcoming without a blow; laying our enemies at our
feet, under sorrow, shame, and repentance; leaving our foes our
friends, and sollicitously inclined to grateful retaliations. Thus to
return upon our adversaries, is a healing way of revenge; and to do
good for evil a soft and melting ultion, a method taught from heaven to
keep all smooth on earth. Common forceable ways make not an end of
evil, but leave hatred and malice behind them. An enemy thus reconciled
is little to be trusted, as wanting the foundation of love and charity,
and but for a time restrained by disadvantage or inability. If thou
hast not mercy for others, yet be not cruel unto thyself. To ruminate
upon evils, to make critical notes upon injuries, and be too acute in
their apprehensions; is to add unto our own tortures, to feather the
arrows of our enemies, to lath ourselves with the scorpions of our
foes, and to resolve to sleep no more: for injuries long dreamt on,
take away at hit all rest; and he sleeps but like Regulus, who busieth
his head about them.
__________________________________________________________________
AMUSE not thyself about the riddles of future things. Study prophecies
when they are become histories, and part hovering in their causes. Eye
well things past and present, and let conjectural sagacity suffice for
things to come. There is a sober latitude for prescience in
contingences of discoverable tempers, whereby discerning heads see
sometimes beyond their eyes, and wise men become prophetical. Leave
cloudy predictions to their periods, and let appointed seasons have the
lot of their accomplishments. 'Tis too early to study such prophecies
before they have been long made, before some train of their causes have
already taken fire, laying open in part what lay obscure and before
buried unto us. For the voice of prophecies is like that of
whisfpering-places: they who are near, or at a little distance, hear
nothing; those at the farthest extremity will understand all. But a
retrograde cognition of times past, & things which have already been,
is more satisfactory than a suspended knowledge of what is yet
unexistent. And the greatest part of time being already wrapt up in
things behind us; it's now somewhat late to bait after things before
us; for futurity still shortens, and time present sucks in time to
come. What is prophetical in one age proves historical in another, and
so must hold on unto the last of time; when there will be no room for
prediction, when Janus shall loose one face, and the long beard of time
shall look like those of David's servants, shorn away upon one side, &
when, if the expected Elias should appear, he might say much of what is
past, not much of what's to come.
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LIVE unto the dignity of thy nature, and leave it not disputable at
last, whether thou hast been a man; or, since thou art a composition of
man and beast, how thou hast predominantly passed thy days, to state
the denomination. Un-man not, therefore, thyself by a bestial
transformation, nor realize old fables. Expose not thyself by
four-footed manners unto monstrous draughts, and caricatura
representations. Think not after the old Pythagorean conceit, what
beast thou mayst be after death. Be not under any brutal metempsychofis
[164] while thou livest, and walkest about erectly under the scheme of
man. In thine own circumference, as in that of the earth, let the
rational horizon be larger than the sensible, and the circle of reason
than of sense: let the divine part be upward, and the region of beast
below; otherwise, 'tis but to live invertedly, and with thy head unto
the heels of thy antipodes. Desert not thy title to a divine particle
and union with invisibles. Let true knowledge and virtue tell the lower
world, thou art a part of the higher. Let thy thoughts be of things
which have not entred into the hearts of beasts: think of things long
past, and long to come: acquaint thyself with the choragium [165] of
the stars, and consider the vast expansion beyond them. Let
intellectual tubes give thee a glance of things, which visive organs
reach not. Have a glimpse of incomprehensibles; and thoughts of things,
which thoughts but tenderly touch. Lodge immaterials in thy head:
ascend unto invisibles; fill thy spirit with spirituals, with the
mysteries of faith, the magnalities of religion, and thy life with the
honour of God; without which, though giants in wealth and dignity, we
are but dwarfs and pygmies in humanity, and may hold a pitiful rank in
that triple division of mankind into heroes, men, and beasts. For
though human souls are said to be equal, yet is there no small
inequality in their operations; some maintain the allowable station of
men; many are far below it; and some have been so divine, as to
approach the Apogeum [166] of their natures, and to be in the consinium
of spirits.
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BEHOLD thyself by inward opticks and the crystalline of thy soul. [167]
Strange it is, that in the most perfect sense there should be so many
fallacies, that we are fain to make a doctrine, and often to see by
art. But the greatest imperfection is in our inward sight, that is, to
be ghosts unto our own eyes; and while we are so sharp-sighted as to
look thorough others, to be invisible unto ourselves; for the inward
eyes are more fallacious than the outward. The vices we scoff at in
others, laugh at us within ourselves. Avarice, pride, falshood, lie
undiscerned and blindly in us, even to the age of blindness: and,
therefore, to see ourselves interiourly, we are fain to borrow other
men's eyes; wherein true friends are good informers, and censurers no
bad friends. Conscience only, that can see without light, fits in the
Areopagy [168] and dark tribunal of our hearts, surveying our thoughts
and condemning their obliquities. Happy is that state of vision that
can see without light, though all should look as before the creation,
when there was not an eye to see, or light to actuate a vision:
wherein, notwithstanding, obscurity is only imaginable respectively
unto eyes: for unto God there was none; eternal light was ever; created
light was for the creation, not himself; and as he saw before the fun,
may still also see without it. In the city of the new Jerusalem there
is neither sun nor moon; where glorified eyes must see by the
Archetypal [169] sun, or the light of God, able to illuminate
intellectual eyes, and make unknown visions. Intuitive perceptions in
spiritual beings may, perhaps, hold some analogy unto vision; but yet
how they see us, or one another, what eye, what light, or what
perception is required unto their intuition, is yet dark unto our
apprehension; and even how they see God, or how unto our glorified eyes
the beatifical vision will be celebrated, another world must tell us,
when perceptions will be new, and we may hope to behold invisibles.
__________________________________________________________________
WHEN all looks fair about, and thou seest not a cloud so big as a hand
to threaten thee, forget not the wheel of things: think of sullen
vicissitudes, but beat not thy brains to foreknow them. Be armed
against such obscurities, rather by submission than fore-knowledge. The
knowledge of future evils mortifies present felicities, and there is
more content in the uncertainty or ignorance of them. This favour our
Saviour vouchsafed unto Peter, when he foretold not his death in plain
terms, and so by an ambiguous and cloudy delivery dampt not the spirit
of his disciples. But in the assured fore-knowledge of the deluge, Noah
lived many years under the affliction of a flood; and Jerusalem was
taken unto Jeremey, before it was besieged. And, therefore, the wisdom
of astrologers, who speak of future things, hath wisely softened the
severity of their doctrines; and even in their sad predictions, while
they tell us of inclination not coaction from the stars, they kill us
not with Stygian oaths and merciless necessity, but leave us hopes of
evasion.
__________________________________________________________________
IF thou hast the brow to endure the name of traitor, perjur'd, or
oppressor, yet cover thy face when ingratitude is thrown at thee. If
that degenerous vice possess thee, hide thyself in the shadow of thy
shame, and pollute not noble society. Grateful ingenuities are content
to be obliged within some compass of retribution; and being depressed
by the weight of iterated favours, may so labour under their
inabilities of requital, as to abate the content from kindnesses. But
narrow self-ended souls make prescription of good offices, and obliged
by often favours think others still due unto them: whereas, if they but
once fail, they prove so perversely ungrateful, as to make nothing of
former courtesies, and to bury all that's past. Such tempers pervert
the generous course of things; for they discourage the inclinations of
noble minds, and make beneficency cool unto acts of obligation, whereby
the grateful world should subsist, and have their consolation. Common
gratitude must be kept alive by the additionary fuel of new courtesies:
but generous gratitudes, though but once well obliged, without
quickening repetitions or expectation of new favours, have thankful
minds for ever; for they write not their obligations in sandy but
marble memories, which wear not out but with themselves.
__________________________________________________________________
THINK not silence the wisdom of fools; but, if rightly timed, the
honour of wife men, who have not the infirmity, but the virtue of
taciturnity; and speak not out of the abundance, but the well-weighed
thoughts of their hearts. Such silence may be eloquence, and speak thy
worth above the power of words. Make such a one thy friend, in whom
princes may be happy, and great counsels successful. Let him have the
key of thy heart, who hath the lock of his own, which no temptation can
open; where thy secrets may lastingly lie, like the lamp in Olybius his
urn, [170] alive, and light, but close and invisible.
__________________________________________________________________
LET thy oaths be sacred, and promises be made upon the altar of thy
heart. Call not Jove [171] to witness, with a stone in one hand, and a
straw in another; and so make chaff and stubble of thy vows. Worldly
spirits, whose interest is their belief, make cobwebs of obligations;
and, if they can find ways to elude the urn of the Praetor, [172] will
trust the thunderbolt of Jupiter: and, therefore, if they should as
deeply swear as Osman to Bethlem Gabor; [173] yet whether they would be
bound by those chains, and not find ways to cut such Gordian knots, we
could have no just assurance. But honest men's words are Stygian oaths,
and promises inviolable. These are not the men for whom the fetters of
law were first forged; they needed not the solemness of oaths; by
keeping their faith they swear, [174] and evacuate such confirmations.
__________________________________________________________________
THOUGH the world be histrionical, and most men live ironically, yet be
thou what thou singly art, and personate only thyself. Swim smoothly in
the stream of thy nature, and live but one man. To single hearts
doubling is discruciating: such tempers must sweat to dissemble, and
prove but hypocritical hypocrites. Simulation must be short: men do not
easily continue a counterfeiting life, or dissemble unto death. He who
counterfeiteth, acts a part; and is, as it were, out of himself: which,
if long, proves so irksome, that men are glad to pull off their
vizards, and resume themselves again; no practice being able to
naturalize such unnaturals, or make a man rest content not to be
himself. And, therefore, since sincerity is thy temper, let veracity be
thy virtue, in words, manners, and actions. To offer at iniquities,
which have so little foundations in thee, were to be vicious up-hill,
and strain for thy condemnation. Persons viciously inclined, want no
wheels to make them actively vicious; as having the elater and spring
of their own natures to facilitate their iniquities. And, therefore, so
many, who are sinistrous unto good actions, are ambi-dexterous unto
bad; and Vulcans in virtuous paths, Achilleses in vicious motions.
__________________________________________________________________
REST not in the high-strain'd paradoxes of old philosophy, supported by
naked reason, and the reward of mortal felicity; but labour in the
ethicks of faith, built upon heavenly assistance, and the happiness of
both beings. Understand the rules, but swear not unto the doctrines of
Zeno or Epicurus. [175] Look beyond Antoninus, [176] and terminate not
thy morals in Seneca or Epidetus. [177] Let not the twelve, but the two
tables be thy law: let Pythagoras be thy remembrancer, not thy textuary
and final instructer; and learn the vanity of the world, rather from
Solomon than Phocylydes. [178] Sleep not in the dogmas of the
Peripatus, Academy, or Porticus. [179] Be a moralist of the mount,
[180] an Epictetus in the faith, and christianize thy notions.
__________________________________________________________________
IN seventy or eighty years, a man may have a deep gust of the world;
know what it is, what it can afford, and what 'tis to have been a man.
Such a latitude of years may hold a considerable corner in the general
map of time; and a man may have a curt epitome of the whole course
thereof in the days of his own life; may clearly see he hath but acted
over his fore-fathers; what it was to live in ages past, and what
living will be in all ages to come.
He is like to be the best judge of time, who hath lived to see about
the sixtieth part thereof. Persons of short times may know what 'tis to
live, but not the life of man, who, having little behind them, are but
Januses of one face, and know not singularities enough to raise axioms
of this world: but such a compass of years will shew new examples of
old things, parallelisms of occurrences through the whole course of
time, and nothing be monstrous unto him; who may in that time
understand not only the varieties of men, but the variation of himself,
and how many men he hath been in that extent of time.
He may have a close apprehension what it is to be forgotten, while he
hath lived to find none who could remember his father, or scarce the
friends of his youth; and may sensibly see with what a face in no long
time oblivion will look upon himself. His progeny may never be his
posterity; he may go out of the world less related than he came into
it; and, considering the frequent mortality in friends and relations,
in such a term of time, he may pass away divers years in sorrow and
black habits, and leave none to mourn for himself; orbity may be his
inheritance, and riches his repentance.
In such a thred of time, and long observation of men, he may acquire a
physiognomical intuitive knowledge; judge the interiors by the outside,
and raise conjectures at first fight; and knowing what men have been,
what they are, what children probably will be, may in the present age
behold a good part and the temper of the next; and since so many live
by the rules of constitution, and so few overcome their temperamental
inclinations, make no improbable predictions.
Such a portion of time will afford a large prospect backward, and
authentick reflections how far he hath performed the great intention of
his being, in the honour of his Maker; whether he hath made good the
principles of his nature, and what he was made to be; what
characteristick and special mark he hath left, to be observable in his
generation; whether he hath lived to purpose or in vain; and what he
hath added, acted, or performed, that might considerably speak him a
man.
In such an age, delights will be undelightful, and pleasures grow stale
unto him; antiquated theorems will revive, and Solomon's maxims [181]
be demonstrations unto him; hopes or presumptions be over, and despair
grow up of any satisfaction below. And having been long tossed in the
ocean of this world, he will by that time feel the indraught of
another, unto which this seems but preparatory, and without it of no
high value. He will experimentally find the emptiness of all things,
and the nothing of what is pail; and wifely grounding upon true
christian expectations, finding so much pall, will wholly fix upon what
is to come. He will long for perpetuity, and live as though he made
haste to be happy. The last may prove the prime part of his life, and
those his best days which he lived nearest heaven.
__________________________________________________________________
LIVE happy in the Elizium of a virtuously composed mind, and let
intellectual contents exceed the delights wherein mere pleasurists
place their paradise. Bear not too slack reins upon pleasure, nor let
complexion or contagion betray thee unto the exorbitancy of delight.
Make pleasure thy recreation or intermissive relaxation, not thy Diana,
life and profession. Voluptuousness is as insatiable as covetousness.
Tranquillity is better than jollity, and to appease pain than to invent
pleasure. Our hard entrance into the world, our miserable going out of
it, our sicknesses, disturbances, and sad rencounters in it, do
clamorously tell us we come not into the world to run a race of
delight, but to perform the sober ads and serious purposes of man;
which to omit were foully to miscarry in the advantage of humanity, to
play away an uniterable life, and to have lived in vain. Forget not the
capital end, and frustrate not the opportunity of once living. Dream
not of any kind of metempsychosis [182] or transanimation, but into
thine own body, and that after a long time; and then also unto wail or
bliss, according to thy first and fundamental life. Upon a curricle in
this world depends a long course of the next, and upon a narrow scene
here an endless expansion hereafter. In vain some think to have an end
of their beings with their lives. Things cannot get out of their
natures, or be or not be in despight of their constitutions. Rational
existences in heaven perish not at all, and but partially on earth:
that which is thus once, will in some way be always: the first living
human soul is still alive, and all Adam hath found no period.
__________________________________________________________________
SINCE the stars of heaven do differ in glory; since it hath pleased the
Almighty hand to honour the north-pole with lights above the south;
since there are some stars so bright that they can hardly be looked on,
some so dim that they can scarce be seen, and vast numbers not to be
seen at all even by artificial eyes; read thou the earth in heaven, and
things below from above. Look contentedly upon the scattered difference
of things, and expect not equality, in lustre, dignity, or perfection,
in regions or persons below; where numerous numbers must be content to
stand like lacteous or nebulous stars, little taken notice of, or dim
in their generations. All which may be contentedly allowable in the
affairs and ends of this world, and in suspension unto what will be in
the order of things hereafter, and the new system of mankind which will
be in the world to come; when the last may be the first, and the first
the last; when Lazarus may sit above Caesar, and the just obscure on
earth shall thine like the sun in heaven; when personations shall
cease, and histrionism of happiness be over; when reality shall rule,
and all shall be as they shall be for ever.
__________________________________________________________________
WHEN the Stoick said that life would not be accepted if it were offered
unto such as knew it, [183] he spoke too meanly of that state of being
which placeth us in the form of men. It more depreciates the value of
this life, that men would not live it over again; for although they
would still live on, yet few or none can endure to think of being twice
the same men upon earth, and some had rather never have lived than to
tread over their days once more. Cicero in a prosperous state had not
the patience to think of beginning in a cradle again. [184] Job would
not only curse the day of his nativity, but also of his renascency, if
he were to act over his disasters and the miseries of the dunghill. But
the greatest underweening of this life is to undervalue that, unto
which this is but exordial or a passage leading unto it. The great
advantage of this mean life is thereby to stand in a capacity of a
better; for the colonies of heaven must be drawn from earth, and the
sons of the first Adam are only heirs unto the second. Thus Adam came
into this world with the power also of another; nor only to replenish
the earth, but the everlasting mansions of heaven. Where we were when
the foundations of the earth were laid, when the morning stars sang
together, [185] and all the sons of God shouted for joy, He must answer
who asked it; who understands entities of preordination, and beings yet
unbeing; who hath in his intellect the ideal existences of things, and
entities before their extances. Though it looks but like an imaginary
kind of existency, to be before we are; yet since we are under the
decree or prescience of a sure and Omnipotent Power, it may be somewhat
more than a non-entity, to be in that mind, unto which all things are
present.
__________________________________________________________________
IF the end of the world shall have the same foregoing signs, as the
period of empires, states, and dominions in it, that is, corruption of
manners, inhuman degenerations, and deluge of iniquities; it may be
doubted, whether that final time be so far off, of whose day and hour
there can be no prescience. But while all men doubt, and none can
determine how long the world shall last, some may wonder that it hath
spun out so long and unto our days. For if the Almighty had not
determin'd a fixed duration unto it, according to his mighty and
merciful designments in it; if he had not said unto it, as he did unto
a part of it, hitherto shalt thou go and no farther; if we consider the
incessant and cutting provocations from the earth; it is not without
amazement, how his patience hath permitted so long a continuance unto
it; how he, who cursed the earth in the first days of the first man,
and drowned it in the tenth generation after, should thus lastingly
contend with flesh, and yet defer the last flames. For since he is
sharply provoked every moment, yet punisheth to pardon, and forgives to
forgive again; what patience could be content to ad over such
vicissitudes, or accept of repentances which must have
after-penitences, his goodness can only tell us. And surely if the
patience of Heaven were not proportionable unto the provocations from
earth, there needed an intercessor not only for the sins, but the
duration of this world, and to lead it up unto the present computation.
Without filch a merciful longanimity, the heavens would never be so
aged as to grow old like a garment. It were in vain to infer from the
doctrine of the sphere, that the time might come, when Capella, a noble
northern star, would have its motion in the AEquator; that the northern
zodiacal signs would at length be the southern, the southern the
northern, and Capricorn become our Cancer. However, therefore, the
wisdom of the Creator hath ordered the duration of the world, yet since
the end thereof brings the accomplishment of our happiness, since some
would be content that it should have no end, since evil men and spirits
do fear it may be too short, since good men hope it may not be too
long; the prayer of the saints under the altar will be the supplication
of the righteous world that his mercy would abridge their languishing
expectation, and hasten the accomplishment of their happy state to
come.
__________________________________________________________________
THOUGH good men are often taken away from the evil to come; though some
in evil days have been glad that they were old, nor long to behold the
iniquities of a wicked world, or judgments threatened by them; yet is
it no small satisfaction unto honest minds, to leave the world in
virtuous well-temper'd times, under a prospect of good to come, and
continuation of worthy ways acceptable unto God and man. Men who die in
deplorable days, which they regretfully behold, have not their eyes
closed with the like content; while they cannot avoid the thoughts of
proceeding or growing enormities, displeasing unto that Spirit unto
whom they are then going, whose honour they desire in all times and
throughout all generations. If Lucifer could be freed from his dismal
place, he would little care though the rest were left behind. Too many
there may be of Nero's mind, who, if their own turn were served, would
not regard what became of others; [186] and, when they die themselves,
care not if all perish. But good men's wishes extend beyond their
lives, for the happiness of times to come, and never to be known unto
them. And, therefore, while so many question prayers for the dead, they
charitably pray for those who are not yet alive; they are not so
enviously ambitious to go to heaven by themselves: they cannot but
humbly with, that the little flock might be greater, the narrow gate
wider, and that, as many are called, so not a few might be chosen.
__________________________________________________________________
THAT a greater number of angels remained in heaven, than fell from it,
the school-men will tell us; that the number of blessed souls will not
come short of that vast number of fallen spirits, we have the
favourable calculation of others. What age or century hath sent most
souls unto heaven, he can tell who vouchsafeth that honour unto them.
Though the number of the blessed must be complete before the world can
pass away; yet since the world itself seems in the wane, and we have no
such comfortable prognosticks of latter times; since a greater part of
time is spun than is to come, and the blessed roll already much
replenished; happy are those pieties, which sollicitously look about,
and hasten to make one of that already much filled and abbreviated list
to come.
__________________________________________________________________
THINK not thy time short in this world, since the world itself is not
long. The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity; and a
short interposition for a time between such a state of duration, as was
before it and may be after it. And if we should allow of the old
tradition, that the world should last six thousand years, it could
scarce have the name of old, since the first man lived near a sixth
part thereof, and seven Methuselahs would exceed its whole duration.
However, to palliate the shortness of our lives, and somewhat to
compensate our brief term in this world, it's good to know as much as
we can of it; and also, so far as possibly in us lieth, to hold such a
theory of times past, as though we had seen the same. He who hath thus
considered the world, as also how therein things long past have been
answered by things present; how matters in one age have been acted over
in another; and how there is nothing new under the sun; may conceive
himself in some manner to have lived from the beginning, and to be as
old as the world; and if he should still live on, 'twould be but the
same thing.
__________________________________________________________________
LASTLY; if length of days be thy portion, make it not thy expectation.
[187] Reckon not upon long life: think every day the last, and live
always beyond thy account. He that so often surviveth his expectation
lives many lives, and will scarce complain of the shortness of his
days. Time past is gone like a shadow; make time to come present.
Approximate thy latter times by present apprehensions of them: be like
a neighbour unto the grave, and think there is but little to come. And
since there is something of us that will still live on, join both lives
together, and live in one but for the other. He who thus ordereth the
purposes of this life, will never be far from the next; and is in some
manner already in it, by a happy conformity, and close apprehension of
it. And if, as we have elsewhere declared, [188] any have been so
happy, as personally to underhand christian annihilation, extasy,
exolution, transformation, the kiss of the spouse, and ingression into
the divine shadow, according to mystical theology, they have already
had an handsome anticipation of heaven; the world is in a manner over,
and the earth in ashes unto them.
CHISWICE PRESS:--PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS,
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
__________________________________________________________________
[136] Salmoneus.
[137] Exaggerations.
[138] Speculations which open different tracks to the mind.
[139] Linea recta brevissima. First edit.
[140] In Short-hand.
[141] Pride, covetousness, lull, envy, gluttony, anger, sloth.
[142] Arbor Goa de Ruyz, or Ficus Indica, whose branches send down
shoots which root in the ground, from whence there successively rise
others, till one tree becomes a wood. First edit.
[143] Epikairekakia. First edit.
[144] See note 1, page 16.
[145] The Ram, Lion, or Bull, signs in the zodiack.
[146] "In the compass of thy own little world."
[147] Sapiens dominabitur astris. First edit.
[148] Adam, thought to be created in the state of man, about thirty
years old. First edit.
[149] Attalus made a garden which contained only venomous plants. First
edit.
[150] Alluding to the story of Theseus, who had black sails when he
went to engage the Minotaur in Crete.
[151] Pompeios Juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsum Terra tegit Libyes.
First edit.
[152] Any thing worn on the hand or body, by way of monition or
remembrance.
[153] Don Sebastian de Covarrubias, writ three centuries of moral
emblems in Spanish. In the 88th of the second century he sets down two
faces averse, and conjoined Janus-like; the one a gallant beautiful
face, the other a death's-head face, with this motto out of Ovid's
Metamorphosis,
Quid fuerim, quid simque, vide.
First edit.
--You discern
What now I am, and what I was shall learn. Addis.
[154] See page 31, note 1.
[155] "With shadows all round us." The Periscii are those, who, living
within the polar circle, see the sun move round them, and consequently
project their shadows in all directions.
[156] Which being a light fluid, cannot support any heavy body.
[157] "In the expanses of the highest heaven."
[158] A book so intitled, wherein are sundry horrid accounts. First
edit.
[159] When Augustus supped with one of the Roman senators, a slave
happened to break a glass, for which his master ordered him to be
thrown into his pond to feed his lampreys. Augustus, to punish his
cruelty, ordered all the glasses in the house to be broken.
[160] Anaxarchus, an antient philosopher, was beaten in a mortar by a
tyrant.
[161]
Tu miser exclamas, ut Stentora vincere possis,
Vel potius quantum Gradivus Homericus. Juv.
First edit.
You rage and storm, and blasphemously loud,
As Stentor bellowing to the Grecian crowd,
Or Homer's Mars.--
Creech.
[162]
----Minuti
Semper et infirmi est animi exiguique voluptas,
Ultio----Sic collige, quod vindicta
Nemo magis gaudet, quam foemina. Juv.
----Revenge! which Rill we find
The weaken frailty of a feeble mind.
Degenerous passion, and for man too base,
It seats its empire in the female race.
Creech.
[163] A soft tongue breaketh the bones. Prov. xxv. 15. First edit.
[164] See page 65, note 2.
[165] Dance.
[166] To the utmost point of distance from earth and earthly things.
[167] Alluding to the crystalline humour of the eye.
[168] The great court, like the Areopagus of Athens.
[169] Original.
[170] Which after many hundred years was found burning under ground,
and went out as soon as the air came to it. First edit.
[171] Jovem lapidem jurare. First edit.
[172] The vessel, into which the ticket of condemnation or acquittal
was cast.
[173] See the oath of Sultan Osman in his life, in the addition to
Knolls his Turkish history. First edit.
[174] Colendo fidem jurant. Curtius. First edit.
[175] The authors of the Stoical and Epicurean philosophy.
[176] Stoical philosophers.
[177] Stoical philosophers.
[178] A writer of moral sentences in verse.
[179] Three schools of philosophy.
[180] That is, according to the rules laid down in our Saviour's sermon
on the mount.
[181] That all is vanity.
[182] See note 2, page 65.
[183] Vitam nemo acciperct, si daretur scientibus. Seneca. First edit.
[184] Si quis Deus mihi largiatur, ut repuerascam et in cunis vagiam,
valde recusem. Cic. de Senectute.
[185] Job xxxviii.
[186] Nero often had this laying in his mouth, Emou thanontos gaia
michtheto puri: "when I am once dead, let the earth and fire be jumbled
together."
[187] Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum,
Grata superveniet quae non sperabitur hora. Hor.
Believe, that ev'ry morning's ray
Hath lighted up thy latest day;
Then, if to-morrow's sun be thine,
With double lustre shall it shine.
Francis.
[188] In his treatise of Urnburial. Some other parts of these essays
are printed in a letter among Browne's posthumous works. Those
references to his own books prove these essays to be genuine.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Indexes
__________________________________________________________________
Index of Greek Words and Phrases
* eusarkos: [1]1
* Emou thanontos gaia michtheto puri: [2]1
* Epikairekakia: [3]1
* Ho tuchon : [4]1 [5]2
* Th: [6]1
__________________________________________________________________
Index of Latin Words and Phrases
* ----Minuti: [7]1
* Ho tuchon : [8]1
* Accusatori nollet dare.: [9]1
* Caldae gelidaeque minister: [10]1
* Cannarum vindex, et tanti sanguinis ultor, Annulus.: [11]1
* Census: [12]1
* Cerebrum Jovis: [13]1
* Colendo fidem jurant: [14]1
* Demito naufragium, mors mihi munus erit: [15]1
* Dulcique fenex vicinus Hymetto,: [16]1
* Foenerator Alphius: [17]1
* Hic niger est, hunc to Romane caveto: [18]1
* In Tiberim defluxit Orontes: [19]1
* Ipse ego, nam memini, Trojani tempore belli Panthoides Euphorbus
eram.: [20]1
* Jovem lapidem jurare: [21]1
* Judice nemo nocens absolvitur: [22]1
* Laquearius: [23]1
* Linea recta brevissima: [24]1
* Nihil agis dolor.: [25]1
* Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum, Grata superveniet quae
non sperabitur hora: [26]1
* Optimi malorum pessimi bonorum: [27]1
* Plaudite: [28]1
* Pompeios Juvenes Asia atque Europa, sed ipsum Terra tegit Libyes:
[29]1
* Primusque dies dedit extremum: [30]1
* Quaetrit calendis ponere.: [31]1
* Qui nescit dissimulare nescit Regnare: [32]1
* Qui partem acceptae saeva inter vincla cicutae,: [33]1
* Retiarius: [34]1
* Sapiens dominabitur astris: [35]1
* Se: [36]1
* Si quis Deus mihi largiatur, ut repuerascam et in cunis vagiam,
valde recusem: [37]1
* Suam religit Idibus pecuniam: [38]1
* Tu miser exclamas, ut Stentora vincere possis, Vel potius quantum
Gradivus Homericus: [39]1
* Virtute et literis ornatissimus: [40]1
* Vitam nemo acciperct, si daretur scientibus.: [41]1
* Voluptates commendat rarior usus: [42]1
* aucupium: [43]1
* hic niger: [44]1
* in coagulato: [45]1
* in soluto: [46]1
* magnae virtutes nec minora vitia: [47]1
* non ultra: [48]1 [49]2
* piscatio: [50]1
* plaudite: [51]1
* verba ardentia: [52]1
* verum certe verum atque verissimum est: [53]1
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Index of Pages of the Print Edition
[54]i [55]ii [56]iii [57]iv [58]v [59]vi [60]vii [61]viii
[62]ix [63]x [64]xi [65]xii [66]xiii [67]xiv [68]xv [69]xvi
[70]xvii [71]xviii [72]xix [73]xx [74]xxi [75]xxii [76]xxiii
[77]xxiv [78]xxv [79]xxvi [80]xxvii [81]xxviii [82]xxix [83]xxx
[84]xxxi [85]xxxii [86]xxxiii [87]xxxiv [88]xxxv [89]xxxvi
[90]xxxvii [91]xxxviii [92]xxxix [93]xl [94]xli [95]xlii
[96]xliii [97]xliv [98]xlv [99]xlvi [100]xlvii [101]xlviii
[102]xlix [103]l [104]li [105]lii [106]liii [107]liv [108]lv
[109]lvi [110]lvii [111]lviii [112]lix [113]lx [114]lxi
[115]lxii [116]lxiii [117]lxiv [118]lxv [119]lxvi [120]lxvii
[121]lxviii [122]lxix [123]lxx [124]lxxi [125]lxxii [126]lxxiii
[127]lxxiv [128]lxxv [129]lxxvi [130]1 [131]2 [132]3 [133]4
[134]5 [135]6 [136]7 [137]8 [138]9 [139]10 [140]11 [141]12
[142]13 [143]14 [144]16 [145]17 [146]19 [147]20 [148]21 [149]22
[150]23 [151]24 [152]25 [153]26 [154]28 [155]30 [156]31 [157]32
[158]33 [159]34 [160]36 [161]38 [162]39 [163]40 [164]41 [165]42
[166]43 [167]44 [168]45 [169]46 [170]47 [171]48 [172]49 [173]50
[174]51 [175]52 [176]53 [177]54 [178]55 [179]56 [180]57 [181]58
[182]59 [183]60 [184]61 [185]62 [186]63 [187]64 [188]65 [189]66
[190]67 [191]68 [192]69 [193]70 [194]71 [195]72 [196]73 [197]74
[198]75 [199]76 [200]77 [201]78 [202]79 [203]80 [204]81 [205]82
[206]83 [207]84 [208]85 [209]86 [210]87 [211]88 [212]89 [213]90
[214]91 [215]92 [216]93 [217]94 [218]95 [219]96 [220]97 [221]98
[222]99 [223]100 [224]101 [225]102 [226]103 [227]104 [228]105
[229]106 [230]107 [231]108 [232]109 [233]110 [234]111 [235]112
[236]113 [237]114 [238]115 [239]116 [240]117 [241]118 [242]119
[243]120 [244]121 [245]122 [246]123 [247]124 [248]126 [249]127
[250]128 [251]129 [252]130 [253]131 [254]132 [255]133 [256]134
[257]135 [258]136 [259]137 [260]138 [261]139 [262]140 [263]141
[264]142 [265]143 [266]144
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This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
generated on demand from ThML source.
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